


There Is Only Justice

by JauntyHako



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Feuilly deserves better, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Old Republic Era, Questioning the Jedi Code for Fun and Profit, Sexy Bartender!Grantaire, slave rebellion, what could go wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 64,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26880736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JauntyHako/pseuds/JauntyHako
Summary: While studying Jedi Archives Combeferre gets ahold of a message he shouldn't have. Next thing he knows, he's on a ship to free a hundred slaves from an Imperial heartworld with no one to help but his estranged best friend and the bartender of the loneliest cantina on Nar Shaddaa.
Relationships: Bahorel/Feuilly (Les Misérables), Combeferre/Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Joly/Bossuet Laigle/Musichetta, Montparnasse/Jean Prouvaire
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

Steam rose from the Sith stronghold, covering the sky in an undulating mass of grey. Sadow's Valley saw little sunlight reflected in its ice these days. Without the machines throwing steam into the air, it would still be hidden underneath the permafrost, and Feuilly, peering up against the near solid vapor, would be forced to excavate another Sith ruin on another forsaken planet. He had dug mines on desert planets, where the evershifting sands abraded his skin down to the flesh, his blood so thick from lack of water it collected like glue in his wounds. He'd built statues of Sith lords on top of mountains where the thin air caused him constant migraines, a sacrifice made for monuments to vanity no one but the slaves that built them ever saw. He'd pulled blocks of marble out of the jungles of Dxun where no machine could reach until the heavy rope left permanent marks on his shoulders. Maybe, on the next planet, he'd gather sand for construction on sunny beaches, or run light errands for kind masters in the big cities of the Empire. Or he'd look back on Sadow's Valley like he did on Dxun and Tatooine, with the nostalgia of a very foolish man.  
  
“Almost time,” he said. The rising darkness provided the cover they needed, their best fighters stood ready and the spy from the top of the valley had given all the information she could. He'd run out of reasons to delay. Climbing into the ruins every day was easier than to keep talking. “You still remember the plan?”  
“We practiced it enough.”  
Feuilly nodded. They had, crouching in foul water hidden in the ruins, one eye always on the melting ice walls threatening to break open in deadly flash floods.  
“Has your leg healed up?”  
“Feuilly.”  
His shoulders sagged and he turned around to face his oldest friend. Bossuet flashed his usual cheery smile.  
“You'll be exposed almost the whole way, there's something more we should be able to do. I'm scared to lose you."  
Bossuet rubbed his bald head and knocked it for good measure.  
“Thick skull here. It won't break that easy.”  
After that, they didn't exchange any more words. Good luck felt too hollow, goodbye too final. Bossuet hugged him, their wet clothes sticking uncomfortably to their bodies. Feuilly held on for a beat longer before he forced himself to let go.  
  
He returned to the excavation site alone.  
The guard closest to him facing the worksite didn't see Feuilly approach until he'd come close enough to reach out and touch his weapon. The guards cradled them close, longingly sweeping their fingers along the barrels, following the slaves' every motion. Feuilly kept his head low as he wound his way through the guards at the ruin entrance and over the pipes siphoning sludge out, carefully choosing each step to avoid tripping on uneven ground hidden by the murky ice water. He caught glances from the other workers and shook his head.  
They had spotted guards outside the camp and the worksite during the shift change today and quickly rumours had made the rounds that they had been discovered. The tension in the camp was higher than they could affort, people on the edge of making costly mistakes. Feuilly paused for breath and looked for his assigned workstation.  
An armoured gauntlet gripped his shoulder.  
Feuilly stared straight ahead.  
Caught.  
His panic given voice wailed, pounded a headache into his temples.  
Discovered. Run!  
Feuilly remained still. Each muscle locked up, his eyes dry and cold because he didn't dare blink. Fear whipped his heartbeat into a frenzied rage, but it was an old companion, a guest that had overstayed its welcome.  
“Where's the other one?”  
“Still out, sir.”  
The guard forced him to the ground, the metal of his armour biting cold and hard through the rags Feuilly wore. He forced his hands to rest loosely at his sides, to not curl and clench into fists.  
“I can see that, slave. Why hasn't he come back is what I want to know.”  
When Bossuet and Feuilly planned for today they had accounted for every contingency, starting with guards questioning Bossuet's absence. Even though sweat collected at his hairline and bile sat at the back of his throat, Feuilly could give the answer. But this hand had been a weight on his shoulder his entire life, the condescension in the guard's voice more familiar to him than the fading memory of his mother's lullabies. He knelt on the ground drenched and fearful, less than human through the eyes and the actions of the man above him.  
Through this last shot at freedom he had reclaimed the courage of a human being.  
“Must have gotten sick of your ugly mug.”  
The blow hit him like a ten meter drop. He fell forward, the skin on his hands tore open on the rough stone. The boot coming his way grazed his stomach, Feuilly rolled onto his side to avoid it, but the second kick hit the mark, forcing out what little air he'd sucked into his lungs. He scrambled to get to his knees, and was forced down by a boot crushing the space between his shoulderblades. Gasping against his burning lungs and slipping on thin ice he barely kept his head over the water. The world swam out of focus, reduced to nothing but grey stone and his own bleeding hands, until he was pulled up by his hair and the carved ceiling of the ruin swept into view.  
“Clever, are we?”  
His eyes squeezed shut of their own volition, hot tears pooling at the sides. The guard ripped out strands of hair as he shook Feuilly. He dry-heaved, dizziness and nausea and all-encompassing terror mixing beneath his heart.  
“Are we?” he repeated, hissing at his ear. Scorching hot spittle hit Feuilly's cheek. Dreams of the future had given him courage, the immediate threat of abuse at the guard's hands drove it away.  
He was an animal again, cowering away from pain.  
“No, sir. I'm sorry, sir. Please forgive me, sir.”  
“The vermin wants forgiveness. Think you can get away with insulting your betters, do you?”  
His body was knocked against the guard's solid armour as he pulled him up and close against his face, his feet scrambling for purchase.  
“Tell me what you are.”  
Shame coiled in Feuilly's stomach, but he knew the answer. He gave it.  
“I'm vermin, sir.”  
Abruptly he was dropped, knees and hands hitting the ground again.  
“Damn right you are. Go join the other vermin in your hole before I change my mind.”  
  
Feuilly didn't get to his feet. He crawled out of sight, around the first corner, only then pulling himself up against the ancient pillars. He blinked hard once, then twice, teeth catching on his chapped lips, but the tears formed too quickly. He wiped them away, the dirt and sweat on his face hiding his moment of weakness, protecting him from the pitying and knowing looks of others. He breathed deep, forced his emotions away. If Bossuet came through all this would be over soon. The thought calmed him enough to keep his eyes dry and clear, seeing for the first time the youngest slave in their camp standing in front of him.  
“Made a gravity check, huh,” Gavroche said and gestured at half of his own face to illustrate what Feuilly's looked like. He grinned a toothy smile and Feuilly did his best to mirror it.  
“Something like it.”  
Gavroche handed him his mining gear and together they headed down the hallway to join the other slaves working to free it from centuries worth of ice. Sith carvings came alive under the flickering lights of torches and headlights, screaming out of silent stone throats. Feuilly woke from his share of nightmares, of half-forgotten stories of Sith apparitions dragging the innocent towards madness and death, but he'd gotten used to the glum and stuffy air, could some days almost ignore it. The only one he'd ever known not scared of the ruins at all worked next to him, half his size and age, and much braver than he was.  
“Bossuet's on his way?”  
Feuilly nodded and sent the pickaxe flying down. Ice cracked, tiny splinters hitting his hands. He did it again, matching the rhythm of his work to the count he kept in his head. 978 seconds since he last saw Bossuet.  
“Not long now.”  
“You could have sent me,” Gavroche said reproachfully.  
Feuilly reiterated his self-made promise never to tell anyone how long he'd considered it.  
Cameras sometimes didn't follow targets as small as Gavroche, and Feuilly had seen him sneak around guards, dropping into camp after an adventure no one had even known he'd been on until he returned. Guards who relished in punishing adult slaves sometimes hesitated with children, and should he be captured, Gavroche knew far less of their plans than Bossuet. It would have been the smarter thing to do, even if he'd never be able to look at himself again.  
“You already helped plenty with the keycards to the lifts.”  
They hoisted up a block of ice, large enough to warrant both of them carrying it to the side, their bare hands stinging from the cold.  
“It's just,” Gavroche said, panting at the weight of the cube. “Don't know if sending Bossuet was a good idea. He's got negative force.”  
Feuilly hesitated for a moment, but Gavroche's statement didn't make more sense.  
“What?”  
Before Gavroche could answer another slave approached. An older man, hunched from enduring years of labour, older than Feuilly saw himself becoming. This time his hunched back hid something other than old pain.  
“Broke on the big block down the western corridor. Guard believed it when I said some of it got swept away,” the man said, holding out smooth plastic and metal. Feuilly took it, hid it quickly in his rags lest the guards made a surprise round and found them. The threat of ice bursting kept them away, but Feuilly didn't risk it.  
“Thank you, Mabeuf. Now get back before anyone realises you're gone.”  
The old slave hurried away, head darting around to see if anyone had spotted his absence. On Gavroche's insistent tugging Feuilly took out their little treasure. A power coil from a mining blaster, almost burnt through. If you knew the equipment well, you could fake the power coil burning out, accompanied by a small spark that would startle a slave and cause him to drop the coil in the water. The guards, thinking the burnt coil had no use left, would give the slave a new mining blaster in exchange for the rest of the old and not ask for all the pieces. Then it was a simple matter of retrieving the coil and putting it together with the other parts and pieces they gathered, stole, and snuck out under the noses of the guards over months and years. A poor armoury but better than going with fists and stones against rifles.  
  
Feuilly and Gavroche headed deeper down the hallway, soon surrounded by steam thick enough to obscure their vision. They worked with picks and axes, broke off chunks of ice with small picks. Their masters demanded manual work around the detailed frescoes that lasers might damage, but the larger reason was their reluctance to equip too many slaves with blasters at once. They distributed a handful each day to prevent an armed insurrection. Today the camp's best marksmen carried them.  
Gavroche returned to explaining the concept of negative force.  
“You know how Jedi are always dodging bullets and winning at card games?”  
“I don't know if they play card games,” Feuilly said, although he saw where Gavroche was going with this.  
“Why wouldn't they? Anyway, Bossuet and I figured, if the Force makes things go your way, and the more you have, the luckier you get ...”  
“Then Bossuet can't have a lot of it.”  
“Exactly. We figure he's got a rare case of negative force. It doesn't like him, see, so it-”  
“Out! All out, now! Lay down your work and line up!”  
  
The overseer's order echoed through the ruin, mixing with the trampling of feet as the slaves scrambled to obey. The overseer never called them away from their work without reason. The guards entered the ruins for surprise inspections, moving around and sometimes over the slaves as they searched for contraband. They wouldn't demand the slaves exit the ruins unless they needed them all in one place.  
Feuilly, sweating despite the cold, stopped Gavroche in his tracks.  
“Stay here.”  
“What? No, they'll find out.”  
“They won't find out. I promise. Just stay here, hide, and wait until it's over.”  
The low light made it difficult to keep up eye contact but Gavroche's eyes found his, hard as his own, no sign of the terror that made Feuilly's hands shake.  
“You're going to do it.”  
“Promise me you'll stay here.”  
“I can help, Feuilly, let me come up with you, I'll-”  
“Get a move on!”  
They flinched at the echoes ringing in their ears. Feuilly pushed Gavroche back into the hallway, pressed his finger to his lips and went to climb up the slope out of the ruins.   
  
The other slaves surrounded him, casting worried glances in his direction. One of them showed the blaster he held behind his back. Others clutched their pickaxes, pieces of wood, rocks.  
The sun sunk behind the mountain range, the clouds of steam breaking as the heating machines turned away from melting the glaciers to keep the Sith lord warm in his stronghold during the night. Feuilly imagined patterns in the steam and the constellations of the stars beyond, lined up with the other workers. He counted in his head.  
1 346 seconds since Bossuet had left for the valleytop.  
“Start counting, overseer.”  
A Sith had come down. There wasn't supposed to be a Sith. They never set foot on the worksites. Feuilly's eyes went straight to the lightsaber at his hip, a double blade with jagged metal edges. His people stirred, heads turning up and down the line, looking to Feuilly for reassurance he could not give. The guards couldn't discover Bossuet's absence. Feuilly glanced in the direction of the lifts, caught the eye of one of the slaves. The slave shook her head, pleading silently.  
1 591 seconds since Bossuet had gone.  
He had hoped that Bossuet might go and come back undetected, but planned for being discovered. The weapons they cobbled together over the years lay hidden at the camps, a brisk walk away. With armed guards and a Sith surrounding them they might as well have been on another planet. The signal sat on his tongue, tempted him to speak it while they still had the element of surprise. He swallowed it, kept counting down the seconds.  
1 701. If the overseer used the shock collars while Bossuet was still in range, they'd lose more than their lives. They'd lose their last chance at freedom.  
But if they finished counting and came one short, two with Gavroche hiding in the ruins, the end result would be the same. If they did, no amount of troublemaking would distract them from Bossuet.  
“Just keep quiet,” the slave next to him whispered.  
Feuilly closed his eyes, the overseer's voice counting the slaves like a sharp pendulum swinging towards his neck. No solution presented itself. If he gave the signal the Sith would slaughter them all. If he didn't Bossuet would be caught and their entire camp would be exterminated to set an example.  
One thousand eight hundred and twenty six.  
Feuilly stepped forward, whole body shaking.  
The overseer spun on his heels, two arm's lengths between them.  
“Get back in line!”  
1832.  
“You do not own us!” he shouted, voice breaking. “We will be free!”  
Mayhem broke out. The slaves roared in defiance, repeated Feuilly's desperate battle cry. The heat of blaster fire grazed his cheek as they opened fire. Those who had no weapons swarmed the guards, overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. Someone barked orders, the guards attempted to close their lines. Through the havoc a lightsaber activated with a hiss, red light reflected off the ice.  
The water disturbed, the quiet broken, slaves fell as the guards returned fire.


	2. Chapter 2

Bossuet pulled the keycard for the elevator lock upside down twice, before he slowed down and did it right. If the guards returned from their shift change early they would see him in his muddy rags fiddling with tech they would beat him for looking at. But nobody came, nobody saw him scurrying into the lifts, pressing himself against the far wall. The lift closed and jerked into motion. The guards below, if they did look to the lifts and find them moving, would assume it was one of their own. If they went to the slave camps to count their number, Feuilly was to distract them with a riot. Bossuet had argued against that plan many times, came up with unfeasible alternatives, half-hearted assurances that nobody would notice him missing. Feuilly had rejected them all and promised Bossuet that no matter what happened at the camps he would reach the communications relay undiscovered.  
  
Bossuet knew that, but still expected the entire Imperial army to wait for him above.  
He cursed under his breath, a rapid litany of the same three worst words he knew over and over again, too terrified to get creative with his whispered insults to every deity that saw fit to put him in this glass tomb, rising towards the valleytop. Machines rumbled and groaned under the effort of carrying him. In a thousand scenarios playing in his head a cable snapped, the cabin smashed against the ice and burst into a thousand pieces, falling into the valley below and he along with it.  
The fear paralysed him, kept him rooted to the spot when in a few minutes he needed to be running.  
  
Bossuet forced himself to unclench his fists, smooth his forehead. Feuilly wouldn't have sent him if he had the slightest doubt they would succeed. He wouldn't sacrifice all these lives if he thought there was a chance of failure. Pulling himself to his feet, Bossuet stepped up to the window, hoping he was up high enough that no one would recognise a slave standing in the dark cabin. His mirror image greeted him, faded Zabrak tattoos, sopping wet rags and the too large, too heavy metal collar around his neck. Beyond this meager image, in the darkness, was the valley. It stretched out below, sparks of light at the guard station near the lifts and the worksite atop the ruins. Construction lights taller than him shrunk to pinheads as he watched, but it wasn't their lights that made his blood freeze. It was the thin red light cutting through the darkness, and the people at the worksite barely distinguishable from the mud on which they stood.  
  
He watched, trapped and helpless, as his friends fell to a Sith's lightsaber, fighting not to stay alive but to buy him more time. Blaster fire shot out one of the construction lights, the workers fighting back with the only weapons they had. More than a few lay on the ground. From this height Bossuet couldn't tell if they had been subdued with their shock collars or if they were dead.  
  
Stumbling back from the window he sank down in his corner again, hands clasped together in a meager attempt at comfort, and begged the Force to save them.  
It was then that the lift came to a halt with a jolt, shaking the cabin and him out of his desperate and silent praying. The doors opened with a hiss, even that sound louder than the first time he ever heard it, when he and the other slaves landed on this planet and were brought down to the slave camps they hadn't left since. He was the first of them to reach this point, and no Sith waited for him, no shooting squad. There were no guards up top, just as Feuilly had predicted. Bossuet stumbled out of the lift, catching himself just in time to avoid the floodlights. Mabeuf used to work up here in the stronghold itself, and from him Bossuet knew that the way to the commstation was the same distance as the way to the landing pads. If he turned left instead of right he could try and sneak onboard a ship, get off this planet before anyone could think to activate the collar around his neck. The temptation was strong enough it almost pulled Bossuet along. But if he did, his only friend, the one person who had always protected him, always defended him, who had given him hope that there was someone out there who cared enough to save them, would be alone. Even if he tried to flee after he sent the message, and even if he succeeded, Feuilly would never know. He'd be down there in that camp believing Bossuet had betrayed him.  
  
No. If they left this miserable rock of ice, they'd leave together.  
Keeping to the corners he went as fast as he dared, across the open field and paths to a small building between the lifts and the stronghold. The comm relay maintenance station wasn't locked when Bossuet entered, and it lay as empty as the rest of the stronghold. The people up here likely retreated into the centre of the stronghold to ward off the night chill. Even with several centimetres of durasteel between him and the outside, the relay station was still painfully cold. Emboldened by the emptiness he picked up the pace, rounding corner after corner. Crossing off paths in his head and trying not to think about Feuilly and the others down below, he almost missed the cameras.  
  
He spotted the light turning on out of the corner of his eye and in the half second it took him to process what was happening and diving out of the way back into the hallway, the camera had already turned towards him.  
He hit the ground hard, scrambling to get out of its range, and pressed himself up against the wall.  
“You were supposed to be shut off,” he hissed in the general direction of the camera. Making sure cameras and alarms would be down during their stint had taken them months of planning and preparation. When one of the workers down below was reassigned to become a houseslave within the stronghold, Feuilly had bribed her to shut off the alarms today. He wouldn't say what he had paid her with, and Bossuet hadn't asked. The woman hadn't come through or something else had interfered. Maybe someone ratted them out, maybe the guards had found out about them another way. Either way, he needed to get past those cameras. He couldn't stay, especially if silent alarms had been triggered as well. For all he knew their Sith master could already be on his way here.  
  
As carefully as he could he poked his head around the corner, getting as close a look as he dared before pulling back. A red and orange light blinked on the camera's chassis. One signaled it was functioning. The other that Bossuet's luck might be turning. An automatic test, probably run routinely every night. With a bit of luck the camera wouldn't save anything it recorded.  
  
Waiting in the wide open hallway for the camera to finish its automatic maintenance seemed to take longer than the lift ride, without any indication of how much time had passed. Bossuet counted the seconds until he lost track, and while he still tried to remember if it had been twenty or a hundred and twenty seconds since he started counting, he heard the low whirring of the camera shutting itself off. Caution, and a smidge of cowardice, told him to wait another minute or two, but he disregarded caution's advice and kept going.  
  
After another two close calls with the camera systems he found the main satellite relay. Casting a look over his shoulder and finding the way as empty as he'd left it, he went to work, pulling a lone security spike out from underneath his shoe. Whatever else happened tonight, he'd be glad not to have to walk back with it digging into his soles. Getting it had required another of Feuilly's miracles. He'd managed to pick the dumbest guard of the lot, and convince him to give Bossuet a handful of security spikes to slice into the network and get him access to the holonet during work hours, and didn't count the spikes that were handed back to him. They hid the spike in the ruins to avoid the periodic tech scans, always afraid it would be gone the next time they checked, swept away by the floods.  
All the anxiety was worth it to see the screen light up as it granted him access to the comm relay. It was a breeze setting up a secure transmission and typing the message Feuilly drilled him into remembering every day since they first came up with this last shot at hope.  
“To the Jedi Order and Republic Senate,” he wrote, fast as he could. “We are slaves of the Empire working for the Sith Lord Tholomyés on the planet Ziost, three hundred kilometres south of its capital in a region known as Sadow's Valley. There are one hundred of us. We have sacrificed a great deal and risked our lives to ask for your -”  
Whispering the words to himself he almost missed the whirring. The camera was turning back on, likely not for another maintenance run. He sent the message, half finished but containing the most important things, just as Feuilly had intended, and ran, hoping, praying, that the camera had not caught his face. Maybe this time he'd be lucky.

  


Night had fallen completely by the time he took the lift back down again, and the construction lights had travelled to a spot just off the site where he thought their camp had to be. Going back wasn't nearly as scary as going in, he watched even the glow of the lightsaber, now almost static, shown as threat rather than used, with curious detachment. Whatever else happened, the message had been sent. The Republic would receive it within the next hour, and they would send ships. Rumours of the war having ended in the Sith's favour circulated, but that didn't bother Bossuet. Naysayers always predicted the Empire would or had already won, and the Republic always proved them wrong. They would send ships, soldiers, medics. He imagined standing in this lift again, a Jedi next to him, with a green lightsaber and the simple brown robes they wore. The Jedi would ask him questions, what he knew about the opposition, the terrain, and Bossuet would answer knowing it didn't really matter, that the Jedi had faced worse odds before.  
Under the cover of darkness and the machinery covering every inch that wasn't ruins, he snuck back, remembering the path to the worksite as best he could from his earlier trip, now that everything was covered in darkness.  
For the Jedi rescuing them it would be a routine mission, just another day of many, barely worth using their awesome powers. They would give orders to the soldiers with detached professionality but Bossuet would see that hint of compassion in their eyes, the gentle sweep of their mercy encompassing him and the entire camp.  
  
He kept this image in mind, Jedi defending them and soldiers shooting down the Imperial guards with deadly precision, as he walked onto the worksite.  
And a mass grave.  
The slaves were lined up around a hole maybe six by six metres, dug by hand into the frozen ground, and heaved the bodies of their friends into it. Bossuet stood at the edge of the site, the guards' back still turned to him, and stared. Over a dozen of the other slaves were dead or dying, thrown in a heap stripped naked of even the rags they wore, mangled bodies contorted, some twitching weakly as they were pulled by their arms and legs into the hole by tired slaves labouring through their own wounds. He spotted Feuilly near the Sith, his lightsaber casting a red shadow on his face. He recognised him only because of the signal he gave, having spotted Bossuet somehow, despite his eyes being swollen shut and his face turned towards the ground and the dead slave he buried. Two fingers rested against the dead man's arm, tapping twice, then pausing, then tapping twice again, over and over. No, Feuilly hadn't spotted him. He'd been doing this since he started, hoping for Bossuet to come back and see him. He wanted Bossuet to go to the ruins, location two in their made up code, thought something was there that warranted the risk of being caught. Bossuet stepped back into the shadows as quickly and quietly as he dared.  
  
“Gotta take a leak. Watch these scum for me,” said one guard and turned around, face to face with Bossuet.  
They both froze for the length it took Bossuet to blink and fight down his urge to run. Then the guard reached forward, gloved hand in a vice grip around Bossuet's arm. Pressing his fingers into his skin he pulled him impatiently into the light and toward another guard.  
“Deal with this,” he snarled and stepped out. The other guard didn't waste time. He hit Bossuet across the face and shoved him in line.  
“Trying to get out of work, are we?” he asked and despite having the full attention of a guard, he breathed a sigh of relief. He'd let them believe he was lazy over being rebellious any day.  
“Yes, sir. Not gonna happen again, sir,” Bossuet said appropriately meekly and although his cheek stung from the first slap and his arm hurt from the iron grip of the first guard, the rush of power he felt at keeping his secret almost made up for it.  
“Damn right it won't. You lot made this mess, you'll clean it up.”  
  
He fell in line, mind carefully blank over the kind of work he was performing and chalking up every twitch of an arm or leg up to his overactive imagination. At some point the guard became bored with watching him and he searched for Feuilly again. When he found him, Feuilly was no longer looking. He worked apart from the other slaves, head hung in shame, filled with regret. Bossuet would have liked to cheer him up, to convey the news that the message had been sent, but it had to wait. This would all be worth it soon. They would watch the guards who murdered their people today fall to Republic blasters, and they would walk out of the ruins and the icy sludge free men.  
“You!” The bark of the Sith tore him out of his daydreams, interrupted the almost comfortable monotone. The Sith pushed Feuilly's shoulder. “Go search the ruins for more bodies.”  
Feuilly went, shoulders hunched. Bossuet saw his chance.  
“May I go help him, sir?” he asked the guard closest to him. He got another backhand as a reward for speaking out of turn, but the guard told him to catch up to Feuilly.  
  
Between guards keeping watch every few metres they had no opportunity to talk as they trudged towards the ruin's entrance. Blood had been spilled, pink, blue, and sickly yellow in the steadily melting ice, flowing downhill towards their camp. They stood by the ruin's rooftop entrance when Feuilly first spoke.  
“I pushed him,” he said.  
In all the time they knew each other Bossuet had never heard Feuilly sound like that. It forced shudders down his spine, the hollow echo in Feuilly's normally so gentle voice scarier than the lift ride, more terrifying than the cameras' machine eyes on him. He didn't respond, didn't dare ask for clarification, fearing the answer.  
“I told him to stay down.” Feuilly's voice, barely above a whisper, echoed through the empty ruins. “But he didn't listen. He picked up a blaster one of the others had dropped.”  
Something sharp settled in Bossuet's chest, threatening to cut his lungs if he dared to breathe too deeply. They reached the bottom of the ruins, found a body that had fallen during the fight.  
“There was that Sith, I didn't- ... I pushed him, I didn't mean to-”  
It sounded like an excuse, and Bossuet's silence was no longer one of fear.  
  
At the bottom of the ruin Gavroche lay with broken bones.  
They knelt by his side, hands hovering over his frail little body, not daring to touch as if he might turn to dust at any moment. Feuilly whispered apologies under his breath, or maybe he was crying, but all Bossuet heard was the blood rushing through his ears and a sharp whistle, boring into his brain. He touched Gavroche's face, forced himself to face the reality that the boy was dead, that-  
  
Gavroche gasped. He turned his head, Feuilly nearly screamed, clamping his hands in front of his mouth to cut off the noise.  
The split-second of relief Bossuet felt dissipated just as quickly. Gavroche tried to get up, but his legs lay limp, shattered on the rocks he fell on. He fought to speak, to keep a brave face, but he was still just a child.  
“Gavroche, I'm sorry,” Feuilly said, water in his eyes, reaching out to take the boy's hand. Gavroche pulled away, crying openly now, pained sobs as he sought refuge with Bossuet. Feuilly's face fell, his breaking heart betrayed by the furrow of his brow. A small mean part of Bossuet was glad. If Feuilly hadn't pushed Gavroche down the shaft of the ruin top, he'd be fine now. It was a dark thought, rising from the depths of the planet itself and Bossuet fought it down, forced himself to look Feuilly in the eye.  
“We can't -” he began, and broke off. He'd buried his friends out there without faltering, but now he lost his voice. Feuilly understood him anyway. They couldn't bring Gavroche up there, the guards would see his injuries and force them to bury him along with the others. Head hung, his apologies falling on Gavroche's deaf ears, Feuilly pushed himself to his feet.  
He didn't have much strength left, but it was enough to take Gavroche into his arms, jaw clenching at Gavroche's cries of pain and carry him away from the entrance of the ruins.  
  
A sharper light shone in from above, the cone almost finding Gavroche's frail form if Bossuet hadn't reflexively stepped into the light.  
“What's taking so long down there?” The guard shouted. Rage flared up in Bossuet, drove tears into his eyes at his own powerlessness, at being unable to demand even this one moment.  
“We're still looking for a body. We think there might have been a flood,” Bossuet said, swallowing down his rage.  
The guard pulled back, darkness fell again, and they made their way deeper into the tomb, into an old part that had been thoroughly looted by the Sith, nothing left except empty stone tombs.   
  
Gavroche's pitiful cries echoed from the walls but they quieted as they moved on and by the time they had reached their destination, he had stopped altogether. They pushed the stone covering the tomb aside and laid Gavroche in it.  
“You have to stay here for a while,” Feuilly said. Gavroche shook his head, looked around the frescoes of demons and Sith and worse giving off their own light, tinged red and deepening the shadows.  
“I don't want to, I'm scared down here. What if there's another flood?”  
A flood would drown him, the guards would shoot him. But the Republic might come before the next flood.  
“We'll get you out as soon as we can,” Feuilly promised. “We'll find something to help you with the pain. We'll bring you food.”  
Gavroche was not looking at him.  
“The Republic is coming,” Bossuet added hastily. If they waited too long the guards would come down and find them all. “They'll be here soon. We'll be free, you'll be okay.”  
  
Gavroche nodded, buried his head against Bossuet's shoulder.  
“If you get scared down here, just think of all the places we'll go once we're free.”  
“Alderaan,” Gavroche said. “I want to go to Alderaan. See the fountains.”  
“Then that's what we'll do. We'll go see the fountains, and the big palaces. And when we're tired we'll take a break, and when we want to go home we will. Just think of that until we come again, alright?”  
Gavroche nodded and allowed Bossuet to pull back. He managed a smile, through the pain and the dread of having to spend the entire night down here, the pain of his wounds biting at him like wild hounds.  
“The Republic's coming for sure?”  
“I sent the message,” Bossuet said. “They are on their way.”


	3. Chapter 3

Tython's summer arrived with a heatwave that had even seasoned masters groaning through their exercises. Sparring groups relocated to ponds and waterfalls, and young padawans found themselves much clumsier than just weeks earlier, frequently stumbling into the cool water.  
Combeferre, who studied the archives of Tython's vast libraries, had not noticed.  
  
He sat between rows of data clusters, extracting files that had lain dormant for centuries, touched rarely even before the Jedi abandoned Tython. The other scholars focused on reclaiming ancient Jedi teachings, political treatises that still endured, and convening with the holocrons that waited for eager students to impart their wisdom. Combeferre studied the enemy, after a fashion. The Jedi knew about Sith tactics, and their way of thinking, that wasn't what Combeferre was interested in. Some pedantic scholars and overeager spies of the past had hoarded Imperial family trees, birth and marriage registers, and census data. Whole books so old they'd been written on crumbling paper, filled line by line with names and dates, human lineages and alien races. Who married whom and when, who their children were, how strong in the Force they were, and to what end they came. The lives of millions stretched back in these records and it was them Combeferre went through, name by name, date by date, updating what they knew of the Sith and their bloodlines.  
  
Neither his peers nor his master understood Combeferre's interest in what was even among Sith a task usually delegated to minor bureaucrats. But he enjoyed the work, deciphering words written in faded ink in strange dialects, extracting files from programs no longer compatible with their modern software, and piecing it all together.  
  
Working on an ancient species catalogue from a time when Korriban had just joined the spacefaring societies, he reached out for his cup of tea to find it empty. He frowned down between the cup and the heavy tome, then got up. If the tome had waited to be deciphered a dozen millennia, it could wait until he got a refill.  
  
The summer heat continued to escape Combeferre as he made his way through the meandering hallways of the temple, barely noticing his path, pulled along by muscle memory towards the mess hall. Originally it had been a ceremonial space, now converted to feed the hundreds of Jedi recovering their history. Combeferre stopped short in the archway, taking in the hall's splendour. Tython's Jedi temple was old, just barely younger than the ruins further north, and it mirrored in its architecture. Mullioned windows not used in Republic space for several centuries let in streams of light, expertly illuminating the path between the archway and the raised pedestals at the other end of the hall. They used to hold crowns and jewels, reminders of a time when the Jedi order counted its wealth in far more material ways. Continuing his way Combeferre searched his memory for the exact moment when the Jedi begun espousing a different ideology, and had just decided it must have been during the Order's first scholarly exchange with the Kashi mystics, when the summer finally caught up in the form of a sweating, beaming Padawan. She hopped up on the counter next to the tea set.  
“How can you drink tea in this heat?” She cleared her throat, embarrassed. “I mean, I'm not judging or anything. That's not the Jedi way. You know, to judge. Uh. Please don't tell Master Muheeda.”  
Combeferre, who knew by experience he'd forget about this conversation by the time his tea was finished, shrugged. He took a step back to escape the heat radiating from the Padawan, absurdly glad he was no longer forced to practice combat he wouldn't use in his preferred environment, libraries and archives.  
“Would you like some?” he said as he sifted through the sparse offerings of tea leaves. They got most of their supplies from Kalikori village, which had trouble enough keeping their own people fed with the basics, much less supplying the Order with luxury items. Putting in a request for the occasional shipment of Alderaan Autumnal would probably make him a bad Jedi.  
“No, thanks. I'm supposed to be headed out for more training in a minute. This is the first bathroom break Dentiri let us have in six hours, I'm not risking it.” She smiled and her joy coaxed a grin out of Combeferre. “What are you doing around here, anyway? I've been on Tython for months and I thought I met everyone by now.”  
“I study the Archives. I rarely cross paths with the Padawans,” he said, only half paying attention as he watched the hot water turn a pale brown colour, swirling in hypnotic shapes. The Order of Shasa believed in the meditative focus of water in motion and their acolytes often used ink as an aid in their meditation, turning their water different colours much like Combeferre's tea. He made a note to check if this type of meditation had been used by the Jedi at all. It would be good light reading before he headed to bed tonight.  
“Oh, that's so interesting,” the Padawan said. Combeferre, who had completely forgotten she was there, startled a bit, torn from the now deep brown tea. He needed a moment to remember what they'd been talking about, and brightened when he did.  
“It is, actually. I just stumbled on a Sith genealogy from before the Second Great Schism, and it reveals some astonishing insights into Sith culture of the early Scatif Period. Their culture was not at all xenophobic, despite their rare forays into the wider galaxy. In fact, the text I've been reading implies they drew no legal distinction between themselves and the first explorers with which they came in contact. Of course by the time the human dark Jedi arrived on Korriban the feudal system of the western continent had fractured into several smaller ...” Combeferre trailed off, recognising the characteristic glazed over eyes of a member of his Order too polite to back out of a conversation they had started. The Padawan shook herself out of her trance, smiling in a way she probably hoped was encouraging, but which Combeferre filed under the Please-save-me-from-this-bore category of facial expressions directed his way.   
“Nevermind,” he said quietly and took himself and his tea away.  
  
Jedi teachings taught not to dwell on negative experiences, but Combeferre imagined that it was his personality and not his mastery of the code that made him not linger. True to his own self-assessment he'd forgotten about the Padawan and their conversation halfway on his way back to the library, when he turned right instead of left to make a small detour to the archive terminals they had saved from the Coruscant temple. A translation matrix could be among them that might help deciphering the Imperial runes of his latest tome. His footsteps echoed in the empty hallways of a temple meant to accommodate thousands, now housing a tenth of that, and he had to backtrack several times to find the way to the archive point. When still in training, his Force sense had so well developed he could navigate as if by a small map with markers to wherever he wished to go. In the years since he passed his trials he'd had little cause to use his abilities, which had accordingly atrophied. Beyond the occasional need to ask for directions, however, he didn't see it as a handicap.  
  
The archive point was deserted, saving him the need to stand in line. Unfortunately the virtual intelligence was also offline, probably taken to maintenance. The new technology they brought to Tython meshed badly with the old hardware. Glitches were common, maintenance had their hands full keeping the place running. It took some time to find and activate the interface, and more than he had at hand to filter for the exact file he was searching for. He managed a rough search for first hand sources from Sith occupied worlds, expecting to find maybe half a dozen of ancient entries. What he found instead, at the top of the list sorted by date of creation, was a file several decades more recent than the next-lower entry. Combeferre stilled with the teacup raised to his lips. It had to be a false tagging. The file was likely something entirely different, a Kel Dor dessert recipe or a recording of a Mirialan marriage ceremony, and whoever entered it had mistakenly flagged it as having originated from Ziost. No spies, Jedi or Republic, had infiltrated the former Sith capital in centuries. Their most recent entries from Sith worlds came from redeemed Sith and the few spies that had infiltrated Korriban, the last surviving to give a report twenty years ago.  
Putting his cup on the console next to him, Combeferre accessed the file. He would see what it is, correct the tags, and keep searching for what he came here for.  
By the time he finished reading he had forgotten what that had been.

Satele Shan meditated on the hill overlooking the temple every day two hours before dusk. She liked the serenity of the place, at once removed from the bustle of the temple but close enough that she could survey the entirety of it, giving her an irrational but deeply calming sense of being able to anticipate any danger to her Order.  
Combeferre knew all this, and any other day he would have empathised with the need to find calm and solitude.  
“Master Shan! Master Shan!”  
She startled, a full body flinch seldom seen in a Jedi master.  
He came to a halt before her, breathing heavily and having to put his hands on his knees. He hadn't realised how hot it was, doubly so when coming from within the temple. Combeferre's long sleeved robes stuck to him in unpleasant ways, sweat running down his forehead and back.  
“There is no emotion, there is peace,” Master Shan reminded, although whether him or herself he didn't know.  
“You have to see this, please.” He all but shoved the copy he had made of the file into her hands, stumbling over his words in his haste to explain. “I found this in the archives. I was looking for one of our translation matrices to help with the genealogy I found in the library the other day, the runes are unlike anything I've seen from later periods- I mean, I thought someone had mistagged this, but it's from Ziost, there are people there-”  
“I am aware,” Satele said, interrupting him gently but firmly. She held her hand up when he made to speak. “You were right, the file was falsely sorted into the archive. It was meant to be classified, a mistake which we will correct immediately.”  
“I'd like to be on the rescue team,” Combeferre said and continued before Master Shan could interrupt him again. “I know I'm not the most capable fighter, but I've been studying Zeison Sha healing techniques during my apprenticeship and I could brush up on them on the way. Ziost is steeped in Sith culture, there is so much we could learn, perhaps even bring back artifacts. I realise of course, helping these people is our first priority, but just a glimpse of this world would be enough to fill whole holocrons to a mind attuned to its history and I've been studying the Sith for years, I'd be uniquely suited to accomplish both our primary objective and gather knowledge.”  
  
Between running up the hill in his haste to get to Master Shan and his little speech just now the amount of air in his lungs ran out for good. He stayed upright this time by sheer force of will alone, trying not to let on how winded he had become.  
“Your eagerness is commendable,” Master Shan said. “Although I would advise you to meditate on the need for calm in situations like these.”  
“Of course,” Combeferre supplied, waiting to hear her verdict on his coming along to Ziost and ready to do just about anything for the privilege.  
“However, I'm afraid there will be no rescue.”  
“I understand, but ... what?”  
  
The threads of the conversation frayed. He'd been prepared to argue his case, arguments lined up waiting to be spoken, tumbling down a yawning chasm, shattering as he tried to make sense of Master Shan's words.  
“The Treaty of Coruscant is still in effect, as well you're aware. Currently it is the only thing standing between us and another war, one we cannot afford to wage. If Jedi were spotted on Ziost, acting against one of the most respected Sith Lords in their hierarchy it would amount to a declaration of war. There is at present nothing we can do. Rest assured that we are aware of the situation. We will make contact with this resistance forming on Ziost if and when the Republic Senate decides to push back against the Empire. They may help us gain a crucial advantage in the next conflict.”  
“The next conflict,” Combeferre echoed, his mind swallowed whole by the chasm. Half an hour ago he knew how his day would end. Five minutes ago he made a mental list of things he'd need to bring to Ziost. Now all he could think of was the message, and Satele Shan's indifference, that she used reason rather than passion, weighed the lives of a billion war dead against the freedom of a hundred slaves. It was cold reason and he shuddered despite the stifling heat.  
“Compassion sometimes blinds us to the light,” Master Shan said, not unkindly, in a gesture of reassurance lost on him. He nodded mutely, apologised for disturbing her meditation, and made an excuse of having to go back to his research. His feet kicked up dust on his way back down the hill, the sun setting at last and bringing with it a deep evening chill. It cast its glare directly into his eyes as he walked, the message repeating in his head, blinding him to everything else.  
“To the Jedi Order and Republic Senate. We are slaves ...”

He tried to appeal to the High Council twice more, first with his own former master, Shol Bestros, and then, when that didn't succeed, going to Jaric Kaedan, whom he thought would be eager to fight the Sith in any conflict possible. He was, but would not go against the other Council members, telling Combeferre to cool his heels. He'd never before in his life been told to cool his heels, and had to recite the Jedi code six times in his head before he was calm enough not to run after Kaedan and clock him in the head with his datapad.  
  
He returned to the archive terminal after three days of unsuccessfully trying to catch and persuade any Jedi who came his way to at least try and talk the council into launching a rescue mission. All he found was that the file had gone, likely flagged as classified, and his tea cup stuck to the terminal and beginning to mould. He wiped at the stain the cup left behind when he dislodged it, moving on autopilot until the nature of this situation hit home. Here he was, worrying about a stain on a console, warm and cozy, while at this very moment slaves of the Empire endured suffering he couldn't imagine, believing the Jedi were on their way to save them. What would they think, when no one came? Each and every day they'd look up, hoping to spot a ship flying Republic colours that would take them away, and with every day their hope would diminish, doubt spreading among them. Would they curse the Republic for forsaking them, or stubbornly refuse to see the truth, that the people famed across the galaxy for their bravery and pursuit of justice could not be bothered to care about their lives?  
“The droids will clean that up.”  
Combeferre swallowed a colourful curse, spotting a Padawan, the same one he met a few days earlier in the mess hall.  
“What?”  
“The stain,” she pointed helpfully at the stain Combeferre had been rubbing at. “You looked like someone was going to lash you over it. Don't worry, the droids take care of it. I spill stuff all the time, and the masters don't even get angry. Although, I suppose they wouldn't anyway.”  
  
She wandered off when Combeferre shrugged in answer, struck mute by a half-formed idea that was trying to weasel away before he could fully grasp it.  
If the masters wouldn't get angry at the injustice of it all, then he needed to find someone who would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First three chapters up today. The story itself is finished, the next chapters require only minor editing and will come up as I do that.


	4. Chapter 4

Tython Orbital Station was as close as non-force sensitive visitors got to the ancestral home of the Jedi Order. Supplies were dropped off here, what few weren't provided by Kalikori village. Combeferre suspected the Order let the Twi'leks stay partly so they wouldn't have to deal with off-world traders, nagging them about selling ancient Jedi pottery shards. 

The traders waiting for fuel refills and signed trade orders were stout, somber men and women, who made their living with boring, steady deliveries bringing in boring, steady money. They dressed in simple clothes, utilitarian for their long flights and heavy work, milling about with few words they didn't easily part with and the Jedi didn't easily appreciate.

Enjolras stood out in the crowd like a beacon, clad in Alderaanian formal wear, crisp and bright white, with swathes of rich green fabric draped over his shoulder and chest, golden hair held back by an elegant head piece. He stood amid the people who moved out of his way seemingly without conscious thought, eyes calmly scanning the crowd and passing over Combeferre without seeing him.  
Combeferre deflated, the spring in his step he had ever since he boarded the shuttle to the space station subdued by the weight of history. He had hoped Enjolras would recognise him.  
“Enj,” he said as he came to a halt before him. Enjolras frowned at being called the old nickname, then his eyes widened in recognition.  
“Combeferre? It is you, isn't it?”   
Recognition had come, warmth stayed away. Enjolras stood straight, smile polite, perhaps a bit unsure, but otherwise as friendly and approachable as any royal son trained in the art of diplomacy. They hadn't seen each other since he was eight years old, taken away to train as a Jedi. Throughout Combeferre had kept tabs on his old friends, as well he could, through official announcements and holonet gossip. Enjolras had grown up exactly as driven and fiery as he had been as a child, and twice as beautiful. The roundness of his cheeks had made way for a sharp jawline and high cheekbones, framing eyes that had become piercing, sharpened by age and long distance. He used to be the tallest of their little group, now Combeferre towered over him. He used to be sweet and chubby, now he was all hard lines, a body better suited for a warlord than a noble.   
Across the gap of eighteen years he had turned into a stranger.   
Combeferre stumbled on even ground. It felt wrong to offer his hand to shake, even worse the idea of bowing like a Jedi would to a noble of a distant planet. Once upon a time they would have hugged, would have kissed each other's cheeks and maybe shed a few tears of joy. Combeferre was no longer supposed to have these feelings and if Enjolras did, he didn't show them.

Nonetheless, Enjolras adjusted his green sash, and spread his arms, an offer of an embrace coming from what Combeferre hoped was rekindling affection.   
His hair smelled of flowers, the same that grew in his family's gardens on Alderaan, and despite the fact that it could not possibly be, he felt slightly cool to the touch, as if he'd just walked across the snow covered yard separating their childhood homes and knocked at Combeferre's door.  
“It's been a while,” Combeferre said, the words painfully inadequate to convey just how full his heart was right now, and how slowly some days on Tython passed without his friend there with him.   
Enjolras laughed, the sound muffled in his clothes.  
“You've become a Jedi, all right. Eighteen years since you left and all you can say is 'It's been a while'.”

He drew away, hands finding the seam of his sash, pulling it this way and that, all the while his face betrayed nothing. Or perhaps there was nothing to show. He hadn't curled up against Combeferre like he used to when they were children and when he looked at him Combeferre knew Enjolras saw a stranger.  
Combeferre said nothing, years of training and his own innate awkwardness prevented him from giving a speech worthy of his best friend. Not a day had gone by that he didn't think of Enjolras, growing up bright and fierce as the snow of their homeworld mountains. The moment his masters deemed him ready to receive updates about the outside world he scoured the holonet for every bit of news he could glean of House Panteer and one of its most promising sons. To have him now, strict and cold, a diplomat on a mission rather than a man come to see an old friend, broke his heart.

That would change, Combeferre promised himself. He had good standing in the Order, no one could object to him visiting Alderaan every now and then, and he'd make up for the time he lost with Enjolras. For now, there were more important things than his feelings of estrangement.  
“I need your help.”  
Enjolras drew himself up to his full height. Whatever else he was, distant friend, symbol of the things Combeferre had sacrificed, he was also Enjolras of House Panteer, politician and soldier of the Republic. For the first time since hearing the message from Ziost Combeferre felt the ground return underneath his feet. All the forces of the Empire combined could not win against Enjolras on the warpath.

Combeferre recounted the message as they walked around the station, undisturbed by people and droids alike, courtesy of Enjolras' regal aura and Combeferre's robes. They might have assumed they discussed the lives of millions hanging in the balance. They wouldn't have been entirely wrong, Combeferre supposed.  
“I don't know. The message said a hundred, but there could be more,” he said, stepping out of the way of an astromech delivering tools to its owner. “The Panteer Private Army could-”  
“Do nothing at all,” Enjolras said, shaking his head, his pace increasing as he spoke. “My uncle was assassinated by one of the noble houses who swore their fealty to my family and they did nothing. The queen is dead and instead of fighting my family ran away. They're hiding in their mountain caves as we speak. They won't commit forces to a rescue mission a million lightyears away, not when they have the choice of cowering before the Empire in their own backyard instead.”

Combeferre had to run to keep up with Enjolras who had worked himself up so much he could barely keep himself from spitting on the ground over his family's lack of courage. Combeferre remembered reading Enjolras' statements to the press, the political corps, and anyone else who would listen, about his opinion on the Treaty of Coruscant. He would have sacrificed the Republic capital world in a heartbeat if it meant continuing the fight against the Empire. Watching his own family elect the safer route must have driven him up the wall.  
“Then your only options are mercenaries,” Combeferre said. “The Order is bound by the treaty, they can't do anything. It's why I asked you for help in the first place.”  
“I'll do whatever I can,” Enjolras said, conviction strong enough to pull resources from thin air.  
Combeferre had no doubt he would invade Ziost with a shuttle and half a dozen people if it came to it.

“What about Courfeyrac? Could he use his contacts to help out?”  
Enjolras gave him an odd look.  
“How do you know about Courfeyrac's contacts?”  
“Oh. Uh, I've kept tabs on you. A little.”  
Enjolras shook his head, not angry, but not amused either.  
“Of course,” he said. “You probably know what I had for breakfast every morning since you left.”  
That stopped Combeferre in his tracks. He didn't understand what had Enjolras so upset and that revelation was jarring. He always used to know what his best friend thought, he could read him better than anyone else, but now he saw Enjolras' fingers curled around the hem of his shirt, mouth twisted into something that tried to be neutral but wasn't, and Combeferre had no idea what lay under the mask, only that he was wearing it.  
“Enjolras -”  
“Nevermind,” Enjolras said, too sharply. “I'll ask Courfeyrac for help, but he'll probably send me to Nar Shaddaa. He has his own thing going on. He put it into his head to fight the entire Hutt Cartel. Distracting him right now isn't the best idea.”

Other avenues of potential allies proved similarly fruitless. They threw options back and forth as they made their rounds through the space station, stilted conversation carefully avoiding personal matters.   
It shouldn't have been a big deal, especially not for a Jedi, but Combeferre still chose to stare at the ground rather than Enjolras' eyes when he gathered his courage and said: “I'm sorry I never called. My masters restricted my contact with the outside world, forbade me from contacting anyone I knew. But your life is so public, they couldn't prevent me from keeping up with it as best I could. In some ways it was like I never left.”  
And in other ways he might as well have moved to a different galaxy. So far reached the gulf between them right then and there.  
As he was focused on the lower half of Enjolras he noticed his fingers grasping at the potted plant next to them, brushing over the leaves, a jarring gesture of anxiety compared to his otherwise composed demeanour.  
“I see,” Enjolras said and seemed not inclined to add anything more to that worringly vague statement. They made another few steps, this time towards the shuttle that would take Combeferre back to Tython. 

Enjolras stopped, rapidly enough that Combeferre had to double back a few steps. Enjolras looked at him but his eyes swept past his face, caught instead on his robes.  
“I didn't know you were alive.”  
The confession came softly spoken, but with nothing of that self-consciousness in his fingers as they reached out for something to hold onto.  
“You left so suddenly, we didn't have a chance to say goodbye. And then there was the war, every day we heard about Jedi dying, and we kept thinking, what if one of them was you? But no one would tell me anything.”  
Combeferre could imagine it, Enjolras a decade ago, a head shorter than he was now, toe to toe with whoever had the bad luck to have drawn his attention. Demanding information the Jedi Order kept secret to conceal their numbers from the enemy.   
This was Enjolras reaching out, an admission of regret and lingering affection.   
There was something there to be recovered if Combeferre could only overcome years of trained instinct not to show emotion.  
“I was … I'm trained as a historian. I never saw battle.”

It wasn't what Enjolras needed to hear but Combeferre was at a loss. He could tell he disappointed, fell short of some expectation. Enjolras nodded, avoided eye contact. All these years apart from his friends he followed their lives, expecting to have some catching up to do if he ever saw them again. But he barely knew this man before him.   
They fell into awkward silence, standing across from each other like strangers who weren't sure how to say goodbye in the other's language. He hadn't felt this off-kilter since he started his training, had to dig deep to find the simple mantras that helped a Jedi control his emotions.   
“I'll free these people from Ziost,” Enjolras said at last, conviction straightening his spine and stilling his hands. “You have my word.”

They shook hands, looked each other in the eyes for what could be the last time in a long while. Combeferre found he couldn't let go without saying something, doing anything to fix this gulf that grew between them without his knowledge. But nothing would come to mind, no magic remedy to fix what had been broken.  
It was Enjolras who broke contact first, who gave him a final nod and then turned, to wait for a shuttle that wouldn't depart for another day.

Combeferre returned to Tython, thinking of the message to avoid thinking of Enjolras. He wondered if the one who sent it was alright, or if the slaves that risked everything to get a message to the Republic were long dead, tortured to death for daring to fight back, while Combeferre returned to his books, safe behind the impenetrable fortress that was the Jedi Order. Like mercury drops finding their way together, his thoughts came back to Enjolras.

He did the right thing telling him, even if it went against the Council's wishes. Even when they were children Enjolras had been unstoppable, a force of nature to Combeferre, who used to hide behind his bigger friends, easily overlooked except to the Jedi who had come to Alderaan almost twenty years ago.   
Enjolras should have been the Jedi, a hero of the Republic, who fought to the end for its ideals. He would have looked good among them. 

The image of Enjolras as a Jedi followed him planetside, stayed with him in the skycab, and took its place among the thousands of other fantasies he'd had about his friends since leaving his home.   
Enjolras idolised the Jedi. If he'd been here all this time, he would have now cheered him up with stories of Jedi heroes who single handedly saved planets and held hordes of Sith at bay. Stories that seemed far away in the library with his ancient records and dry routine. He wondered when being a Jedi stopped being something romantic to him. When it had become a job, reading dusty tomes in an old library, never helping anyone, never being anything like the hero Enjolras thought and feared he had become.

Suddenly Combeferre found he couldn't sit back down at his spot anymore. After decades of training and learning, internalising the tenets of the Order, the old longing returned. Enjolras used to tell him that a Jedi's duty was to help the innocent, that this was their whole reason of being. It had made him feel better about going with strangers into an unknown future, convinced he'd be doing it to create some good in the galaxy. Where did he go wrong that he ended up rooting through Sith writings so ancient and trivial not even they remembered them? How did he come to this, that he sent his friend to fight his battles for him? Combeferre's hand closed around his lightsaber, carried at his side but only used in training. 

He was a Jedi! A Jedi in the tradition of Revan and Cala Brin, a maker of peace, a bringer of justice. He would not waste his time chronicling the lives of long dead Sith when their descendants forced the yoke of slavery on the living.  
Combeferre gathered his texts. It was time he started using them for good.

The way to Master Shol's chambers had never felt shorter. He had barely time to make up a lie when he was called in.  
“You have found something in these old tomes I take it,” his master said, knowing laughter in his eyes. Combeferre seized on it, carried by the wings of old tales.  
“Yes. Yes, it's quite astonishing. I've found mention of an old tomb built for a non-force sensitive member of a Sith Lord's family on Hoth. Quite unusual, especially for the time period. The Republic is undergoing excavations there right now, though I do not believe they know what they've found.” It frightened Combeferre a little how easily the lies came to him. “I would like to assist, Master, I would very much like to visit the site and help with the excavations.”  
He expected argument, at the very least an order to sleep things over. Instead he got a hand on his shoulder.  
“Finally! It is good to see you finally taking an interest in the outside world, my student,” Master Shol said. “This excavation will provide valuable experience. You have my blessing.”  
And just like that, Master Shol approved his leave form and gave him two shuttle passes. One to the Republic fleet, which he would use, and one from the Fleet to Hoth, which he would not. Combeferre was so floored by the lack of resistance he didn't have time to feel guilty.

He packed in haste, the whole time expecting for someone to storm in and put up that fight after all.   
Nobody came and Combeferre wondered, as he started the trip back to the shuttle pad from where he'd just come, if Revan had felt like this joining the war under the nose of the Jedi Council. Had Revan trembled with excitement and anxiety alike? Feared the masters waiting around the corner, disappointment written all over their faces? Or had the person lived up to the legend and had gone confidently without a trace of doubt? Combeferre had no doubt, but also very little confidence. He wished he had someone like Revan's apprentice and friend Malak with him now. Although, he thought as he remembered how that story ended, maybe not exactly like Malak.

But maybe like Enjolras, whose face lit up when he saw Combeferre and his bags, boarding the same shuttle. As if he, too, had hoped for another chance.


	5. Chapter 5

Combeferre thought the halls of the Jedi temple were easy to get lost in, having done so regularly. Nar Shaddaa was on a whole other level. As Enjolras had predicted Courfeyrac could not help them, having his own part of the galaxy to save, but had directed them to Nar Shaddaa. Here the galaxy sold or rented everything, even heroes.   
It was only a minor relief that Enjolras forged ahead with no more of an idea of where they were than he had. He snapped irritated at the street peddlers trying to shill them everything from performance enhancing stims, to holovids, to 'performance' enhancing stims.   
"I know that look. You two looking for love. I've something here that'll make you last all night."  
Combeferre didn't know if it spoke to the Force deafening noise or the peddler's skill that he couldn't feel a lie. Enjolras brushed the merchants off and marched ahead with a confidence that couldn't possibly be real. Combeferre had to jog to catch up. People knocked against him, irrespective of his garb or the lightsaber at his side. Everyone here seemed to be in a hurry, thoughts muddled and pulling in all different directions. Skycabs took off, racing by razor thin margins over people's heads. Aliens and humans yelled in dozens of different languages, hundreds of dialects. Roads merged and diverged, spitting out and swallowing whole groups pushed along by the rapid rhythm of the moon.  
Combeferre debated holding onto Enjolras' sash, reasoned with himself about the pro of not getting separated, versus the con of looking like a mother with her child rather than two adult men, when they reached a lull in the crowd. 

One moment they fought against the waves of people pushing and pulling, threatened to be swept away never to be seen again. The next they stood in an island of calm, the eye of the storm. It wouldn't last long, but Combeferre relished the chance to take a breath and get his bearings.  
Enjolras did the same, although he did it while glowering. The signs were no help, neither was the map Combeferre had brought.   
The landscapes of Nar Shaddaa changed rapidly. Or else they invested little in infrastructure or the idea of tourists finding back to their ships. Combeferre wondered if this was how people came to live here, if they had just been passing through only to be swallowed up by its jaws.   
Still imagining what the jaws of a moon would look like - he pictured crater-pocked teeth and a tongue of molten lava - it took Enjolras pointing it out to notice the sign he'd been looking at ever since they stopped.  
"A cantina?" Enjolras said, brow raised. "Are Jedi allowed to drink?"  
Combeferre hadn't been planning on it, but since there was nothing in the rules about drink and he desperately wanted to be off the street for a while, he made his case on the spot.  
"The, uh, customers will be locals. We want mercenaries, right, we're as likely to find them here as anywhere else."  
Enjolras didn't look convinced.  
"The sign's in Huttese."  
"Yes, but half of Nar Shaddaa's cantinas are named in Huttese," Combeferre said, which wasn't wrong. "Besides, that name's actually a pun. See, in Huttese it says 'Side-Deck Cantina', but in Sy Bisti it says 'The drinks are shit'."  
"You think that's on purpose? Sy Bisti is a pretty rare dialect."  
"It's on purpose," Combeferre decided, having no way of knowing that. 

They entered, Enjolras mostly because he wanted to ask the bartender about the name.   
If they hoped for customers, they hoped in vain. After the shouting in six languages, music in another fifteen, and advertisements running all throughout, coming into the bar was like entering a Jedi meditation chamber.   
The tables were empty, no dancers on the stage, not even holoperformers ran. True to its name the cantina was covered in gaudy pazaak themed decoration in brightly coloured neon lights. Music did run in the background, but so soft it took Combeferre several moments to notice it. A human bouncer slouched just inside, not even sparing them a glance.   
At least the place was clean, although Combeferre was beginning to suspect it came from lack of use rather than care.  
The front stage, opulently decorated, was empty, although Combeferre spotted a holosign, advertising 'the amazing Nuzz-Nuzz' every other weekday during holidays. He turned around to tell Enjolras, and maybe speculate about the species of a dancer named Nuzz-Nuzz, but Enjolras was gone.

He found him at the bar at the far side, the wall behind decked out in bottles of expensive liquor, framing a man who must have been the bartender mixing drinks for the lone customer. He grabbed bottles from shelves, utensils Combeferre didn't recognise, working with a thousand hands but his feet cemented to the ground.   
The customer was young, looking tired but wearing clothes too well made for a manual labourer. Combeferre saw no weapons. The son of someone rich, maybe. Not a tourist, he didn't think. He looked as if he'd seen everything Nar Shaddaa had to offer.   
Combeferre approached slowly, trying to center himself and get a sense of customer and barkeep through the force. He might as well have tried to make out bird song in a huttball stadium. The force on Nar Shaddaa drowned out anything else, loud as only billions of people living on the edges of happiness and misery could be, dying and living and pleading and fighting every second.   
Coruscant was loud too but there it was the magnificence of a choir, singing the same song, united by their love and pride for Republic and their planet. Nar Shaddaa had no such unifying force. Even standing in this nearly empty bar, Combeferre heard and saw nothing through the Force. A Sith Lord could be standing in front of him and he wouldn't know. It made him feel unsettled, like he was trying to see the world through an opaque veil.   
The bartender had his back turned to them, Combeferre couldn't see his face, there was no mirror behind the shelves, but he must have heard them coming, because he turned around before Enjolras had a chance to clear his throat.  
"Dancer's not in until next week," he said.  
"I didn't ask," Enjolras said, a bit put upon.  
"It's what everybody asks. Hutt Cartel won't do business with me and they control almost all the dancers. Except dear Nuzz-Nuzz, of course."  
"Why don't they do business with you?" Combeferre asked, gaining for the first time the attention of the bartender.

He wasn't good looking, although it took Combeferre a moment to come to that conclusion. His face was oddly proportioned, the eyes a little too wide, the nose a bit too crooked, the lips too full for his gaunt cheeks, but too narrow for his wide chin. It should have been off-putting, like puzzle pieces forced together from different sets. Instead Combeferre had to focus to spot the flaws, and if he let his attention drift, he forgot all about them and saw nothing but a quietly handsome man who eyed him with barely concealed trepidation. Combeferre was taken aback, wondered if Enjolras said something about him, or if this stranger recognised him. Enjolras intervened on his behalf.   
"He's here to help me with something, no Jedi business."  
Combeferre nodded, wanting strangely enough for this man to like him.   
The bartender relaxed minutely, shrugged apologetically into Combeferre's direction.   
"Nothing personal," he said. "Jedi drive customers away, and they don't drink enough to make up for it. People feel bad about their vices in front of them. Bad for a business like mine."  
Combeferre looked around, at the empty tables and stages, the music droning in the background like elevator music.   
"I'll endeavour not to impact your business," he said and thought he could hear Enjolras snort.   
"We cater to a selective crowd," the bartender said drily. "And, to answer your question, the Hutts don't like to do business with me because I don't pay protection money and they're afraid it might rub off. Might get in trouble if I started blabbing about it though, so keep it to yourself. I guess you have bigger problems anyway. What brings you here? You're a Jedi, so I assume it's not alcohol."

Enjolras took over again, slotting himself in the conversation seamlessly.   
"We're looking for a smuggler."  
Even the drunk student at the far end of the bar raised his head at this brazen admission.   
"I don't think I can help you break the law," the bartender said pointedly. Enjolras sputtered, righteous indignation coming off him in waves.   
"We're on Nar Shaddaa. The Smuggler's Moon."  
"Unofficially," the bartender said. "If you barge ahead like that every reputable smuggler is going to avoid you, or end up arrested along with you. You have to speak the lingo."

"Look who's talking."  
The bouncer, evidently giving up on the impossible task of vetting non existent customers, ambled over, leaning against the bar and giving Enjolras as blatant a once over as Combeferre had ever seen. He frowned, resisted the urge to put himself between them. He was a Jedi, not a chaperone.  
"You don't ask for a smuggler, you ask for a transport specialist,” he said to Enjolras.  
"But wouldn't I run the risk of getting a legitimate transport specialist?" Enjolras interrupted, irritated at being lectured.   
"Don't be silly. You're on the Smuggler's Moon."

The sole customer laughed, shaking his head to drive some tiredness away. Combeferre didn't need the force to tell this man desperately needed a good night's rest, not Enjolras' glare as he turned his attention to him.   
"Don't know if you've come to the right place, but it's nice to meet you. These guys are charmed, too, they're just too busy taking the piss to say so. Name's Joly."   
The man held out his hand and Enjolras took it, wary but too polite to refuse. He expected another joke, but being reminded of their manners softened the other men up.   
"Bahorel," the bouncer introduced himself, clapping Combeferre on the shoulder with enough force to send him toppling into Enjolras, barely keeping upright. "This here's Grantaire. If you buy a drink you get to change the music." He gave Joly a side eye. "Please buy a drink."  
Joly threw up his hands, muttering something about philistines and not being appreciated, to which Bahorel only snorted.   
"Don't you have better things to do than educate us plebeians about art?"   
"Don't remind me," Joly groaned, turning to Combeferre and Enjolras. "I'm planning to drink away the fact that I'm on an internal ward specialising in Hutt gastrointestinal issues. When I'm done with uni, I'll apply somewhere where I never have to do a colonoscopy again."

Combeferre, following the exchange with the dawning understanding that if the Jedi Order had not discovered him his dream of becoming a doctor may have well led him to learn and then drink himself into forgetting the many issues Hutts had with their intestines, took a moment to notice Grantaire mixing another drink.   
He did it properly, too, all the bells and whistles, throwing the shaker in the air, catching it with his left hand behind his back, performing tricks that made Enjolras laugh by the time he had his drink in front of him, dark green with a red straw. 

"Here you go, one Sith Lord and a free jukebox token."  
Grantaire set another of the same drink in front of Combeferre.  
"Don't know what this drink will do to a Jedi, so be careful," Grantaire said while Enjolras went to change the music.  
Combeferre took a sip, found the dark liquid filling his mouth like molasses, taking away the air to breathe but replacing it with delicious sweetness. Spices unfolded on his tongue, making his skin grow hot and tight. It tasted like passion felt, like the overbearing presence of the dark side, dangerous but promising great rewards.  
"I'm pleasantly surprised," he said. "I thought the drinks would be shit."  
Grantaire stopped short, looked at Combeferre who immediately shrank back, opening his mouth to explain his rude statement, already working on an apology, when Grantaire threw his head back and laughed.  
"You got the pun!" he said. "You're the first one to get the pun since I opened this place."  
"Because it's a shit pun, boss," Bahorel said and got a friendly punch into the shoulder for it.  
Combeferre grinned into his drink, played with the straw, looking for an excuse to keep talking to Grantaire.  
"The straw represents the lightsaber?" Combeferre asked.  
"Got it in one. Used to have light up straws, too, but customers kept stealing them."  
"Straws are worth stealing?"  
"That's Nar Shaddaa for you. Someone somewhere is making a fortune smuggling stolen glow in the dark straws."  
Combeferre grinned, finding that he liked Grantaire. He'd never made friends in the Order, too shy to ever make the first step, and so Grantaire, with his half shrugs and sardonic grins, was the first person since early childhood Combeferre wanted to keep talking to.   
"Speaking of which," Grantaire said as Enjolras came back, a new song playing on the jukebox.   
"Straws?"  
"Smuggling," Grantaire corrected. "I know a few people around here. If you tell me where and what, I might be able to point you in the right direction."  
Combeferre and Enjolras exchanged a glance. How much to tell these perfect strangers about their plan? Eventually they'd have to tell someone, but Combeferre who had over twenty six years told three lies total, had no idea when that moment would come. Enjolras spoke, fingers curling around the straw.   
"Ziost. To pick up ... people. Who are looking for a ride."  
In the silence that followed Combeferre decided that the song Enjolras had picked might almost be worse than the one running before. Then Joly started laughing, choking on his drink and needing Bahorel to clap him on the back.   
"Now I definitely know you've come to the right place," said Joly.   
Bahorel added: "You just walked into the bar of the one guy on all of Nar Shaddaa who can help you."  
There and then Combeferre knew, that even if the Force was chaotic and loud here, it still guided him. 

Éponine was the prickliest woman Enjolras had ever met, and that was saying something considering some of his extended family. She regarded him and Combeferre like they crawled out of a sewer, but when they named their task, she shrugged and gave her price, which Enjolras was glad to pay.   
"I'm making another trip to Ziost soon. I'll make contact with your guy, get the lay of the land. If you want me to take you that'll cost extra. A lot extra."   
And with that she turned and pulled Bahorel into a conversation. Combeferre didn't expect her to be friendly and wasn't disappointed. After all they were a Republic noble and Jedi trying to free slaves from an Imperial heartworld undetected. He'd trust a surly woman more than a chatty one. 

But now, their first task arranged and nothing else to do until Éponine brought back useable information, Combeferre was at a loss. He knew nothing and no one here, had no idea what to do for fun or even where to stay. Enjolras must have felt the same way but he took action.  
"Do you rent out rooms?" he asked Grantaire.   
Grantaire snorted, then sobered up when he realised Enjolras was serious.   
He looked around with the air of someone who may have once thought about renting out rooms but hadn't had a chance to try out the concept.  
"Maybe, maybe not. Depends on if I can find the keycards."

Grantaire didn't find the keycards but it turned out in their favour. While he got a replacement, he offered to take them on a walking tour through his corner of Nar Shaddaa. With Bahorel manning the bar, now completely without customers but still optimistically open, they set out into the bustling hive that was the Smuggler's Moon. Joly tagged along, part hungover part exhausted and left them at a taxi cab that would bring him back to university.  
"Don't fuck up your exams!" Grantaire shouted after him and got a wave in return.

Because Combeferre was the tallest and commanded a smidgen of respect more than the others due to his status, he took the lead, Grantaire half a step behind telling him where to go. Nar Shaddaa was still blinding and loud, but Grantaire offered directions through the throng of people, along side roads and fended off street vendors with practiced ease. It didn't take long for them to leave the entertainment district behind, Grantaire's bar being at its edges, and enter into a small industrial sector, where the vendors were more somber, the signs less gaudy, and the air thick with smoke. Within minutes Combeferre felt distinctly greasy and tried to surreptitiously wipe his hands clean on his robes, which looked worse than they ever had before. 

If he had stayed on Tython, his robes would still be clean. But Enjolras would still be half a galaxy away. He threw his old friend a glance from the corner of his eye, trying to match up the sight of the boy he'd known with the stern and unhappy man before him. It used to be only Courfeyrac could match Enjolras in cheer, but the war and Alderaanian noble politics must have made him serious. Or maybe his memories betrayed him and, tainted with nostalgia and homesickness, showed him a person that never really existed. He wondered what Courfeyrac looked like now, outside of the official pictures. Enjolras noticed him staring, shot him a questioning glance. How to ask your best friend about your other best friend without opening a can of worms full of abandonment and distant regret?  
Combeferre turned to Grantaire.  
"You're not a native of Nar Shaddaa, are you?"  
"No one's a native of Nar Shaddaa," Grantaire said, making to elaborate but being interrupted by someone calling his name. Grantaire greeted back, shook a Rodian's hand and exchanged a few words before moving on, having lost his train of thought until Enjolras spoke up.  
"Why? You can have citizenship here, can you? And people must have children here. There have to be natives."  
"You can, they do, and there aren't." 

They wove through a spidery web of side alleys until they emerged in a deeper portion of the neighbourhood. The sky, yellow and smoke covered as it was, disappeared completely. Instead flickering streetlights illuminated their way and lighting shone out through windows and doorways. Several storefronts had been smashed by rocks or in one case by a still smoldering speeder.  
"Nar Shaddaa isn't a place you call home. Everyone here has plans to leave. It's a port, a thoroughfare. Every sentient being in the galaxy comes through Nar Shaddaa sooner or later. From Exar Kun to Revan to every Galactic Senator out for spacer votes. It's a net that catches petty thieves, conquerors, and helpless idiots looking to get killed."  
"Which are we?" Enjolras asked sardonically, hoping to entrap Grantaire in an impoliteness. His eyes were glued to their tourguide.  
"You're looking to wage war on a Sith capital world to steal a bunch of what I can only assume are slaves. You're all three."  
"Which are you?" Combeferre asked.  
Grantaire shrugged, looking up at the metal ceilings as if the stars hung from their rusted rafters.   
"Idiot. Hands down."

Once again Grantaire avoided elaborating by meeting a friendly face. The scene repeated itself several times. Grantaire seemed to know everyone, waved and shook hands and poked his head in storefronts, once even leaving with a bowl of a Devaronian delicacy, spicy sweets the three of them shared on their last leg. It would have been quicker to take a cab, but with their funds running low and Grantaire being a guest in every home, none of them were keen to.

Grantaire spoke about Nar Shaddaa at length, wove trivia about its history into theories about its pull.  
"Like a black hole," Enjolras said, licking his fingers clean of spicy honey.  
"Spot on," Grantaire said. He and Combeferre noticed each other staring at Enjolras' honey covered tongue at the same time. Combeferre coughed and averted his eyes, cheeks hot with embarrassment even recital of the code wouldn't disperse. "The only difference is that Nar Shaddaa spits you out as soon as swallows you. Here we are."

The shop Grantaire referred to was half hidden between a collapsed building and a large tattoo parlour, offering in grand letters a special offer to remove 'bad decisions'. The holographic date showed the offer was several months old. Combeferre had never in his life had the opportunity to make a bad decision and was beset by the sudden urge to do so in that parlour.  
He was stopped by Enjolras pulling him into the shop with him, a motion which nearly caused Combeferre to smack his head into the doorframe. Not because of his own height, but because the door was several inches too short for the average human. The inside revealed what looked like a garbage dump with two glowing spots in the middle, until it moved and from the heap of spare electronics and scrap metal a Jawa emerged. It spoke, the rhythmic and fast paced trade language of their kind, which Combeferre had never learned.  
"K'wachee, koop'a luppa ... "  
Open mouthed Enjolras and Combeferre watched as Grantaire fell into an accented but fluid Jawaese, within seconds getting the Jawa to laugh and reach out to get the electronic lock information.   
Enjolras chuckled and, when Combeferre threw him a confused glance, held out a spare earpiece. Combeferre took it and realised it must be connected to Enjolras' translator software, because it gave him a Basic speakalong to Grantaire's and the Jawa's conversation.  
It was nothing scandalous. Grantaire asked for new keycards to be made, the Jawa did not ask for security verification, which in Republic space would have been a crime but was on Nar Shaddaa likely the polite thing to do. They exchanged a joke the translator software hopelessly mangled to the point where Combeferre chortled at the mistranslation more than its likely intended meaning, and then credits changed hands. They had said their goodbyes, the Jawa even switching to a heavily accented Basic for Enjolras and Combeferre, and gone down the road before either of them had collected themselves enough to form a sentence.

"I never met anyone who speaks their language," Enjolras said, so obviously angling for backstory Combeferre didn't even fault Grantaire the eyeroll.  
"Plenty of traders do-"  
"Understand it, yes. Not speak it. They understand Basic, don't they?"  
"The ones dealing with customers, sure."  
"... and?"  
"And what?" Grantaire asked with so much innocent confusion that Combeferre was for a split second not sure what they had just talked about. Enjolras persisted.  
"Why speak it if Basic works?"  
Grantaire shrugged.  
"It's a fun language," he said and ducked his head, leading them back the way they came, only heading for a cab once they reached the main streets. 

They spoke little on the rest of the way back, only to let Grantaire point out places of interest to them. Good cantinas, clubs. The university Joly went to, and a zoo run by a Hutt with eclectic taste in alien wildlife. Grantaire freely offered opinions and information, tipped the droid cab driver whom he, of course, knew by designation, but once Combeferre knew to listen, he also heard what Grantaire wasn't saying. 

The thought followed him into his room, adjacent to Enjolras' whom he heard through the thin walls singing Panteer hymns in the sonic shower. Everyone came to Nar Shaddaa eventually, Grantaire had said, but no one who could avoid it stayed. He and Enjolras were brought here by slaves fearing death and hoping against hope for help neither Republic nor Jedi would give. Perhaps he was getting used to the way the Force flowed here, perhaps he completely misinterpreted Grantaire's pointed silence about himself. But whatever had brought Grantaire here, Combeferre resolved to ask Enjolras not to inquire anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

Éponine's ship was her home.   
More than the rat palace of her father, more than the rooms above cantinas all over the galaxy she took when she couldn't sleep in her ship. The Four O'Clock, named for the hours just before dawn on her once home planet, was hers, every inch bought and built and scraped together over the years. More than any of that, it was quiet.   
She had the chance to sit down in her pilot's seat, worn out leather molded to the shape of her body over the hundreds of hours she had spent in it, watching the stars from her panorama windows, leaned back, curled in one of her ratty blankets, stitched and repaired because she could never bring herself to replace them.   
New things entered the cockpit all the time, little trinkets and souvenirs she bought herself from her trips or, very rarely, were given to her by the few friends she'd made.   
But they never left. Even plates and disposable packaging had a hard time escaping the vortex of her space, piling up on the floors and in the corners, or ontop of rarely used consoles. Her latest addition to the cockpit was a small device about the size of her palm, a square box of metal and plastic, with wires dangling outside waiting to be plugged into the main machinery once she was done with it. Flying this starship and having to avoid legitimate businesses Éponine had learned to tinker and fix on the go, sometimes mid flight, once while racing along the hyperlanes. Usually her repairs were more substantial than this, though. Fixing a thirty ton starship engine hardwelded into the shell of a ship was, ironically, easier than getting this thing up and running and removing all the security and privacy invading measures the manufacturers had built in. 

“Damn screw, get out of there,” she muttered, fighting to get this tiny bit of plastisteel to unscrew while ideally not getting lost forever. Her fingers couldn't reach into the space by a long shot and her tools were just small enough that she didn't immediately give up on using them on the device. It was frustrating work and slow, because she used improvised, old, cheap, or unsuited tools for the task, but she had the time, while her father's ground crew fueled and checked the ship for faults, docked on her favourite moon. 

Being docked on her favourite moon with Montparnasse at her heels was less of a bonus. She felt him hovering just outside the door, forbidden like anyone else from entering her inner sanctum, all but salivating at the thought of getting her attention. He must have noticed that she paused her endeavour to listen if he was still there because he took that as permission to speak.  
“What are you doing?”  
Éponine debated not answering, or making something up, but pride in her work won out.  
“Remote piloting system. If I can get this thing up and running, I'll be able to remote control my ship from the ground as long as it remains in low orbit.”  
“Sounds useless.”  
Éponine shrugged.   
“To a dumbass like you, maybe.”  
Montparnasse laughed and she found herself grinning. Truth be told she didn't have a real reason for putting this thing in. There were precious few tactical advantages of being stranded somewhere piloting a massive transporter through the air.   
She'd done it only because she'd seen one of those remote controlled starship toys the other day. Some kids had played with their miniature ships, flying them through the air, making blaster noises and chasing each other pretending to be pirates, Jedi, and soldiers. Éponine had had the image in her head of remote controlling the Four O'Clock like these children did their miniatures, and the thought had tugged at her heartstrings, enough to make it her next project. If nothing else she'd be able to impress some urchins with it.

Setting the project aside for now she got up, deciding that she might as well get things done while docked. Besides, Grantaire had called her earlier asking suspiciously casually about her coming to the cantina later and her curiosity had been piqued.  
On her way down the landing ramp she shot a look over her shoulder, found Montparnasse tagging along like he usually did when she couldn't find something else for him to do. She suspected it was Thenardier pulling the strings, telling him to keep an eye on her.

It wasn't that Montparnasse was a bad guy. It wasn't even that she didn't like him. It was the fact that when he hung around she couldn't visit Grantaire, because Thenardier didn't know about Grantaire and Éponine had no intention of letting that little secret slip through.  
“Look, Parnasse, buzz off, okay? Don't make me throw a ball and tell you to fetch.”  
“Funny,” Montparnasse deadpanned. “Better me than daddy dearest. He's getting antsy. Wants to know what you're planning.”  
“I'm planning to kill him and keep all his riches for myself,” Éponine said. “He doesn't need you to know that.”  
“If I brought back any specifics ... ,” Montparnasse drawled, his tone so hopeful Éponine was tempted to throw him a morsel.  
“The day you do that is the day I can't rub two braincells together anymore. Now buzz off.”   
Éponine wasn't entirely heartless and so she added: “I'll meet you at the Star Cluster later, alright? First game's on me.”  
That little bit of bribery was enough to get Montparnasse to leave her. It was a bit sad, really, Montparnasse a bit pathetic. He was little more than a shallow dandy craving attention, but he was also the most decent person in their outfit, Éponine included. If he didn't spy on her for her father she'd actually like hanging out with him.

She made a lengthy detour through Nar Shaddaa's entertainment district, hoping to lose any less obvious tails her father might have set on her. Montparnasse was right, Thenardier was getting antsy. He grew increasingly paranoid, his dealings with that Sith Lord riskier than all his others business ventures and through all that he feared his daughter staging a coup.   
Éponine let him believe that because ironically it gave her more freedom to pursue her own sidejobs, as long as Thenardier thought he had an eye on her throughout. In truth Éponine didn't have a grand masterplan. She wanted her father gone, craved her own freedom, but she didn't have a clue on how to pull it off. Thenardier had built his empire longer than Éponine was alive and he was entrenched in the criminal underworld, paranoid enough that even his daughter couldn't reach him. And now that deal with the Sith Lord, delivering artifacts to Ziost, their most profitable deal to date. Éponine wanted nothing more than to see it crash and burn.

It was in this mindset, making up fantastical plans to depose her father and become the most feared pirate queen in the galaxy, each less realistic than the last, that she met with Grantaire and his pet project.  
A professional criminal's first reaction to seeing a Republic noble was gleeful anticipation and a dozen stand-by scams already in motion. Seeing a Jedi invoked decidedly more worry. Meeting Enjolras and Combeferre was thus an altogether confusing experience, Éponine trying to find the angle while keeping her mind blank from whatever mind reading powers this Jedi had. 

It turned out there was no angle. Enjolras was as honest and straightforward as they came, telling her they needed eyes on Ziost to see the situation of the slaves firsthand. She didn't believe for a second it was only a theoretical interest, but that only strengthened her resolve. If her father wanted to deal with Sith, she'd deal with Jedi. If he wanted to be a slaver, she'd become an abolitionist.   
It might not have been a plan, might blow up horribly in her face, but it was better than dreaming and coming up with ideas she'd never execute. She charged Enjolras far less than what a transport this risky was worth and was again glad that Montparnasse wasn't here to see.


	7. Chapter 7

Éponine hauled her father's shipment onto her ship, a Hutt passenger transport at first glance, all but invisible in the wider galaxy for its ubiquity if not its interior design.   
Gold reliefs lined the interior hallways, wide and high enough to offer a Hutt and his skiff easy passage. Drains in the hollow floors to siphon Hutt mucus and sweat, suspiciously clean, never having carried its intended passengers. She always meant to spend a day and some chemicals to fake frequent use, but never found the time. As she walked past the drains she made a mental note once again to get it done one of these days, and forgot about it immediately.

The hallways and every available room were stacked with crates, some hanging from the ceiling, many nets empty, swaying in the breeze of Éponine rushing past. Through the open ramp came the noise of the workers finishing up preparations for take-off. If she didn't finish in time her father would take off without her and she'd be forced to waste fuel and open her own hyperspace window rather than piggybacking on his. The difference in fuel would come out of her account and so Éponine picked up her speed, stowing away the last crates full of fake Sith artifacts.

The last crate secured she slid into the cockpit, the only space on the entire ship not lined with gold. Giving the wobbly action figure of a Jedi a nudge – she had bought it on a whim last year and always gave the broken-jointed head a little push before take off – she initiated the surface-to-orbit engines. The meter measuring the ship's hull tension rose as the ship lifted off, well within parameters. Éponine had the formulas needed to exit Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere memorised, but mistakes happened and keeping an eye on the meters was a small price to pay to keep her ship from being torn apart between the moon's gravity and the engines seeking to escape it.   
The tension meter settled as Éponine navigated through the dense traffic of Nar Shaddaa. The proximity scanners chimed to alert of small shuttles, sky cabs, high-flying speeders. A bigger blip ahead was her father's ship, struggling to weave between a shuttle and a small frigate trying to land on the docking pads they had just vacated. Éponine swerved lightly, slipping between the frigate and the highway by turning the Four O'Clock on its side. The tension meter spiked, the needle barely touching the red area before Éponine straightened her out and set her on a direct course out of orbit, her father now slightly behind her, as he passed the area freed by the frigate now able to land. Before long her sensors told her she had exited Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere. The mix of air and industrial fumes made way for vacuum, the tension meter fell to zero, and the proximity sensors switched from motion scanners to mid-range heat monitors.   
She and her ship were suspended in nothing, weightless, fast, and an entire universe to navigate.   
Every time she entered space Éponine was overcome with the urge to pick a direction at random and just fly. Find new stars and planets, build new hyperlanes, discover routes to the strangest adventures. The impulse was almost as old as she was, and she dealt with it by promising herself 'Someday' and locking in the coordinates for the hyperlane that would take her to Ziost. 

Sadow's Valley was visible from space. A big white block of steam forming a perpetual cloud cover forced Éponine to rely on her instrumentation to navigate through as she entered the atmosphere, inertial dampeners doing their best to negate the forces yanking at her ship. Only small vibrations made it through to her feet as she set them down on the floor, sitting up properly to guide her ship through the steam and down to the landing pads. Outside the observation cameras sent nothing but a mass of white up to her screens, leaving Éponine with the unsettling feeling of flying blind. She wasn't, not any more than usual. Visuals out in space, even landing on a planet were inferior to any readings her sensors could give her, but she was still relieved when she broke through the steam cover and down onto the landing pad of Sadow's Valley Private Terminal. 

On Nar Shaddaa her father's people and a few freelance technicians took care of her ship. Here slaves awaited, scuttling to attach the fuel pipes and lower the ramp. She could see the collars around their necks from a distance, a stark metallic sheen against the matte skin and uniforms they wore. Without them they would have looked like regular labourers, dressed just the same, moving about with the certainty of professionals who knew their space. But the collars were there and Éponine couldn't take her eyes off them. Should she talk to one of them, ask about the message that had been sent? But if they didn't know, they might tell their master to avoid punishment or gain approval. She might expose the sender of the message to danger while trying to find them.   
It had seemed so easy. Land on Ziost, do her job, gather information, and return. But there were a dozen slaves on the landing pad alone and any one of them might have sent the message, any one of them might betray the others if they learned of it. Maybe she should have brought the Jedi along after all. Much as the consequences of being caught with a Jedi on an Imperial heartworld were dire, he could have used his tricks to find them the information they needed. 

For now, she still had a job to do before she could talk to any slave, friendly or not. She lowered the ramp and directed the people to the cargo holds where the Sith Lord's shipments awaited. The crates were heavy enough to need two pairs of hands and Éponine did her share, hauling crates with the slaves out to the floors and onto the forklifts. Everywhere else in the galaxy droids drove those but here the controls were empty, to be taken up by a person as soon as the crates were stored. Éponine set down the first crate, when she spotted Montparnasse, leaning against Thenardier's ship. He looked distinctly out of place in his high end clothes and aloof manner. Thenardier never helped with the unloading either, but he had gone ahead to receive payment and pretend that he was more than useful vermin in the Sith Lord's eyes.   
"Hey!" Éponine shouted, startling Montparnasse out of his boredom. "Go make yourself useful."  
To his credit Montparnasse went without complaint. He helped one of the slaves struggling with a heavy crate and Éponine had to turn around to hide her fond smile. He had the drive and initiative of a Kesselian tumbleweed, but he was always willing to get his perfectly manicured hands dirty.

With the crates on their way to wherever the Sith Lord wanted them, Éponine and Montparnasse made their way to the Stronghold proper. She wracked her brain for a way to figure out which of the slaves was safe to talk to, how to get the information she needed. She couldn't damn well walk up the Sith Lord and ask him how many slaves he had and what the best way would be, hypothetically, to smuggle them out from underneath his nose. 

They caught up to Thenardier in one of the reception rooms with a large Sith artifact, this one actually genuine and so the crown jewel of Thenardier's efforts to buy the Sith Lord's approval. He was pacing, clearly not pleased that the Sith made him wait. She always wondered why he was so eager to be in his presence. Even someone as forceblind as herself could feel the oppressive presence of the dark side from a full blown Sith Lord and Tholomyés was the worst she'd ever met. Air became heavy when he was close and the taste of something rotten would fill her mouth and stay there for hours even after he'd left. Not all Sith emanated this much darkness. She'd smuggled, negotiated with, bribed, even liked enough of their kind to know that the master of Sadow's Valley was an evil all his own. 

An evil fast approaching. She heard him before she felt him, barked orders, heavy footfalls and then the air turning to molasses and the sweetness of decaying meat on her tongue. Montparnasse felt it, too. He dragged his hand over his nose and mouth in an aborted motion, then forced them down and his expression into one of neutrality. 

Tholomyés didn't greet them formally.   
"Bring this to my throne room," he ordered and Éponine thought it was all worth it just to see her father bristle. But he too controlled his emotions and ordered Éponine and Montparnasse to take up the last crate as he followed the Sith back into the hallways. A criminal empire like her father's didn't grow to this size without knowing how to deal with Force users. 

Groaning under the weight of smuggled artifacts she and Montparnasse carried Thenardier's latest haul behind him, Éponine walking backwards and focusing hard on making it up the stairs without dropping the crate on Montparnasse's feet. Once, years ago, she had passed a Jedi at a customs office with a cargo hold full of illegal contraband and gotten away with it. Jedi or Sith, slaves or spice, she could do it again. Of course if the Sith caught her smuggling Republic nobles and Jedi onto his world to free his property, she'd be met with more than a disappointed frown and a monologue about making something of herself. Not for the first time she wondered if this was worth it. Just for a chance to get back at her father, with no real plan on how to use this stunt to do it. She had just decided to tell Combeferre and Enjolras that she couldn't risk gathering information about a slave revolt under a Sith's nose, when she bumped backwards into the wide winged doors. 

A slave opened the doors, and Éponine's decision crumbled to dust. Droids were cheaper. Automatic doors were all but ubiquitous, but it was a twi'lek slave, thin and battered who bowed and let them through. She watched him for as long as she could as he went down a perpendicular hallway, watched the slight limp, the left lekku missing its tip, the blue skin ashen and sallow. Tholomyés didn't need to own people. He wanted to.  
"Pretty," Montparnasse said, having followed Éponine's gaze. "But not worth the trouble."  
"Yes, he is." Éponine said and left it at that.

Sith artifacts lined the halls of Tholomyés' stronghold. Éponine had made half of them in her workshop. One Sith holocron, smashed into pieces with a well placed hammer blow, provided the core to a thousand fake ones, with just enough dark side energy in them to make them appear to be real even to Force users. Ancient vases, statues, small chests, painted by Montparnasse and strategically damaged by Éponine weeks ago but looking a millennium old and older. She didn't know if Tholomyés knew the artifacts were fake and didn't care or if her father had managed to pull the wool over his eyes. 

Éponine saw her creations in every corner, tapestries hanging on the walls, discs of ancient metal money, jewellery on mummy heads, and whole arrays of blades and lightsaber hilts, curved and straight, jagged and smooth, gold and silver and obsidian black. In the bright light of her workshop they had looked gaudy, but here with the low red light, black walls and dark carpets Éponine might have been fooled. 

They walked for almost ten minutes, rounding corners, ushered along by Tholomyés' former Imperial soldiers, now mercenaries in the employ of a Sith, as cruel and capricious as their master. By the time they reached the spot where the Sith Lord wanted his latest delivery, sweat had broken out on Éponine's brow, although Montparnasse looked unperturbed as always. She still suspected he used some kind of holographic disguise technology to make himself look like he did, but couldn't prove anything.

Thenardier was already there, making nice with Tholomyés. He'd been buttering up his best customer on every run, every time fearing it would be the last. Éponine wasn't worried. Between the mass of artifacts in the main halls they'd passed and the size of the Stronghold, they'd be delivering fakes to Tholomyés for years. Neither acknowledged them when they entered, but only Montparnasse bristled when one of the guards stepped up and bid them silently to leave.  
"We're not your errand boys-" Montparnasse protested.  
"That is exactly what you are. Now leave the talking to the professionals, boy," Thenardier said, as haughty as an Alderaanian and waved his hand to get them to go.  
"Come on," Éponine hissed and pulled Montparnasse along by the arm.   
Just before the doors could close on them, she caught a snippet of conversation.  
"Had to put down a riot in the Valley recently. Slowed excavation to a crawl. You'll be-"

A riot in the valley. Recently enough that Tholomyés had not yet made up for the slaves killed or incapacitated in the process. Someone down there struggled against their chains. It looked like Éponine had found her informant. Or at least a point to start looking. Now she only had to get rid of Montparnasse, sneak down into the heavily guarded valley, find the slaves, talk to them, return to the top and leave Ziost without anyone being alerted to her trip. But what she had right there, was a plan. It needed some work in the details, but it was more than she had a minute ago. More than she had with regards to her father and leaving his empire. 

Éponine and Montparnasse ended up in one of the reception rooms, a different one to the one they'd started in, decorated to the brim with artifacts. Some of these must have been real because Éponine didn't remember making them. While Montparnasse still rubbed his arm, quietly complaining about her strong grip, she walked around, inspecting the new items while trying to come up with an idea to ditch Montparnasse without giving herself away. She'd be too long to pretend she needed to take a bathroom break. Could she take him with her and just let him wander the valley while she made contact with the slaves? No, that ditz would get them both caught. She couldn't tell him the truth either, because while he wasn't nearly as bad as her father, she still didn't trust him not to tattle on her, even on accident.   
"What did you mean he's worth the trouble?" Montparnasse asked, appearing behind her as suddenly as a ghost. Éponine didn't flinch but it was a close thing.  
"What?"   
"The slave before. I said he's not worth the trouble but you said he was. I'd say you're out to shag him but I know he's not really your type."  
And then he stuck his tongue between his index and middle finger and laughed when Éponine rolled her eyes.  
"Don't worry your pretty head about it," she said, turning back to the artifacts, an idea striking her. "Don't you have to file your nails or something?"  
Montparnasse scoffed and all but shoved his immaculate hands under her nose.  
"Do these look like they need filing?" he said, haughty and dismissive all at once.  
Éponine made a so-so gesture, which was more than enough to shatter Parnasse's fragile confidence, but delivered the killing blow all the same: "I'm sure you can tell better than I can."  
It took all but a minute and a half before Montparnasse made an excuse to get back to the ship and indulge in his vanity. She waited until he was around the corner before she slipped out of the reception room and out of the stronghold.

There were guards at the lifts, two in front of each cabin and one additional one inside, which seemed like overkill. Éponine didn't slow down.  
"Where's the shipment?" she barked, harsh enough that one of the guards actually flinched. He was a big, burly guy but when Éponine walked up to him, getting into his face, he shrunk back.  
"What shipment?"  
She made a show of rolling her eyes at him.  
"What shipment? The fucking shipment. You know, big crates, gray plastisteel, supposed to be on my ship half an hour ago? Ring any bells?"  
Of course, no such shipment existed. Éponine delivered artifacts to Ziost, never brought them away. But the guards had only a nebulous grasp of the not entirely legal business practices of their master and she banked everything on that.   
"Dunno," the guard said. "I'll, uh, call down, okay?"  
"Get to it, slowpoke. I don't have all day."  
The guard spoke on the comm to his colleague in the valley down below to confirm that no, no shipment had been delivered to the lifts down there either. Éponine kept tapping her feet, glared at the guard with all the venom she had in her. The other ones kept quiet for fear of invoking her wrath.   
"Um," said the guard who had called down. His head had almost disappeared between his shoulders. "No shipment's there. Guard said there wasn't supposed to be anything."  
"Great. You idiots can't even transfer a shipment request to your quotas. I have to do everything myself. Alright, you and your friend there, you're coming with me, I'll pick up the damn thing directly from the worksites."  
"Um," the guard said again, exchanging a worried look with his colleague. For a second Éponine worried she had overdone it. But fear of the Sith Lord still superseded fear of her.  
"We can't go with you, ma'am. Supposed to stay up here to, uh, guard the lifts."  
"Against what? You think the Pubs are going to launch a surprise attack against your transport equipment?" She waved her hands, pinched the bridge of her nose with the other. "Nevermind. I'll go down alone. But I will be talking to Lord Tholomyés about this."  
They let her into the elevator without even checking her for weapons.

She descended into the steam, clothes clinging to her skin seconds after the doors opened at the bottom of the valley. From the top the valley had looked like a foamy sea, waves of steam carried between the melting glaciers. When Éponine stepped away from the platform, waved ahead by the guards, she stepped ankle deep into ice cold water. It drenched her immediately, stabbing cold needles into her toes, sucking on her feet and collecting in her boots. She kept going, pushed her hair out of her face, weighed down from the moisture collecting in it.   
She regretted not bringing Montparnasse along. His face at having to wade through muddy ice water in his expensive clothes would have been worth any trouble she could get into. 

The first worksite was empty, likely ransacked by the Sith weeks ago but dark floodlights and equipment crates pointed the way to a more recent site. She passed ruin walls, doors leading into darkness, close enough to the path that Éponine swore she could hear the whispers of long dead Sith calling out from inside their graves. She shuddered, glad she got to leave soon. 

By the time she reached the slave camps the headache she'd been feigning up top had come for real. She wondered if this was the dark side force users could supposedly feel on a planet like this, or if it was just the tension of being somewhere she shouldn't. 

Several slaves milled about the camp, repairing broken equipment, packing up crates of artifacts to be sent back up. She watched, hoped for another hint as to which of these slaves was the one behind the message, slowing down but not stopping so as to avoid suspicion. A Jedi would have come in handy right now. Even the ones who couldn't or wouldn't invade people's minds could pick up on strong feelings, like hope for a rescue. 

She got her hint either way. Some issue had come up among the slaves, she was too far away to hear what was being said, but one of the slaves approached a short, despairingly thin human with reddish brown hair, who paused his work to resolve the slave's concern. He spoke to the other slave, a Twi'lek of undetermined gender, and pointed to the side, squeezing their shoulder in support before moving on to a line that was being formed.   
A guard, facing Éponine but not really seeing her, handed out digging equipment. No proper mining equipment, like heavy duty plasma torches and explosives, but small mining lasers better suited to fine archaeological work like Éponine faked in her workshop and archaic pickaxes of the kind she used as inspiration for her fakes. 

She followed the red-haired human as much as she could while pretending to look through the crates. This man was some kind of leadership figure, if he hadn't sent the message he should be aware of it. She had found him, but didn't know how to approach him without gaining the guard's attention. The fluke about the shipment had gotten her down here, but if she tried to actually move any one of them there would be questions asked she couldn't answer. But whether it was the Force or plain old luck, the red-haired slave broke away from the crowd towards a copse of trees.   
Éponine ambled behind, both to not give away that she was following him, and to avoid catching him with his pants down. 

She still almost did. When she rounded the dead trees frozen in ice for the last few centuries, he was redoing the knot on his trousers and almost let them fall when she came into view.  
She was prepared to quiet the man with gentle force, but he did not scream or shout, made no sound at all except for a sharp intake of breath and his face going slack in surprise, eyes wide, mouth open. Her presence was unusual enough to cause this surprise. She was neither slave nor guard nor Sith.  
His eyes wandered in one quick motion from her face over her clothes, nondescript and utilitarian but not fashion commonly worn in the Empire.  
His surprise made way for more emotion than she was strictly okay dealing with.  
"You came," the man said, voice a breathless whisper. "The Republic got our message, and you're here, you're here, you've come to save us, you heard us ... "  
He stumbled, relief or weakness overpowering him. Éponine dashed forward to catch him and ended up with a man in her arms who was little more than skin and bone. He was dressed in rags, and his feet, she discovered horrified, were almost bare, covered just in cloth and up to his shins submerged in the icy muck.  
His hair, reddish-brown from a distance, must have been a light ginger once, without the filth of the thawing valley in it. He had freckles, too, almost invisible on his pale and sun-starved skin.  
"I'm not with-" Éponine began. She cut herself off, looked him over as he got to his feet, embarrassed at having to be caught like a clumsy child, skin stretched taut over bone as he smiled more brightly than someone with his life had cause to. "... a lot of people," she amended.

She couldn't tell this man that it was just her and two Republic wannabes with illusions of fateful adventure. She couldn't tell him that the Republic had abandoned him, more interested in keeping a fragile truce than liberating innocent people from unspeakable suffering. She was just a smuggler, a liar and a thief, but not a soldier.   
"This is a covert operation," she lied quickly. "Because of the Treaty of Coruscant we can't mount a full scale assault. We have to make do with limited resources."  
The slave looked at her like she was bringing the word of a prophet. She picked up, invented hope for this man and the people he protected.  
"We only received part of your message, so we need to, quietly, see what we're working with. Get a feel for the situation, you see?"  
The man nodded and stepped forward when she stopped speaking and took her hands between his. It was the most intimate and yet most respectful gesture she had ever received.   
"Anything. Anyway you want …"  
"Éponine," she said and added on a whim: "I'm with the Jedi Order and House Panteer."  
"Panteer," the man echoed with tears in his eyes. It was a lie, none of what she said was true. The Jedi Order didn't care, the only one interested in helping was a scholar, and only a single rogue son of the royal family of Alderaan had committed to their cause. She had given him hope, all of it false.  
"I'm …," the man swallowed, wiped the moisture from his eyes. "I'm Feuilly. I'll help. Anyway I can, I promise. I can't believe you're really here ... "

Feuilly took her into the camp proper along routes that she'd never have found on her own. Even the huts, hand erected and providing little cover from the elements, were flooded. They passed them by, sneaking towards the ruins, unseen and unheard. Feuilly whispered and passed a message along with the slaves that came by, and as they reached the main hall in the ruins they were joined by another slave, human too she thought until she noticed the faint scar tissue on his bald head and the faded tattoos on his face.  
"You're Zabrak."  
"I'm Bossuet," he answered, but grinned cheerfully when she made to apologise for her tactlessness. "I'm Zabrak, yeah. Scalp necrosis took the horns years ago, and I can't exactly get the tattoos touched up around here. First thing I'll do when I'm free."  
His grin grew even wider and so did Feuilly's, as he nudged Bossuet and laughed softly at the idea of soon being free.   
"How many of you are there?" she asked. Feuilly and Bossuet grew serious again.  
"About three hundred in the entire valley," Feuilly said. "But only a hundred who are willing to risk escape. I tried to gather as much information as possible. I could tell you …?"  
She said yes. Feuilly told them.

One hundred people, some children, elderly, sick, disabled, and injured, all of them starving, spread out across the entirety of Sadow's Valley. The only landing pads at the stronghold and the only way to the stronghold two glass-walled lifts under heavy Sith guard with overlapping shifts recently instated after the riots. The ruins were fragile, prone to cave in, but also the only place to land ships large enough to get a decent fraction of slaves out in one go. Anti-Aircraft guns would take out any unfamiliar spacecraft attempting just sucha thing and nowhere else on the planet to go. Tholomyés was the only one with codes to disable the guns, his ships and Éponine's the only ones with non-transferrable IFFs. Feuilly looked hopeful at that.  
"I, uh, we can't take Tholomyés head-on," she said. "The Treaty of Coruscant-"  
"What's that treaty you keep talking about?" Bossuet said, then shrugged when she stared blankly. "We don't get a lot of news here."

And so she learned that Feuilly and Bossuet knew the war was over, but not how it had ended. That they believed Silara Panteer still lived and sat on the throne, and that they were convinced that all claims of the Coruscant having been sacked in the war and the Republic terrified to fight the Sith Empire again were nothing but Imperial propaganda.   
"You're proof the Empire's telling a sack of lies," Feuilly said. "They claim the Republic's weak and doesn't care about us, but here you are, on an Imperial heartworld, just for us."  
Here she was alone on an Imperial heartworld with a hundred people about to be told that the Republic and Jedi Order would save them from their nightmare.   
Feuilly's expression changed again, from the carefully optimistic to the grim.  
"There's ... look, I know you're not here to get anyone out just yet, but ..."  
Bossuet took up where Feuilly left off.  
"There's a boy. The guards think he's dead, he wouldn't be missed. But he needs a doctor."

A stowaway was a risk she couldn't take. Not so soon, not without any preparation. A person, even a young child, would be almost impossible to sneak back up the lifts. Her hesitation put a frown on the men's faces. Cursing to herself Éponine straightened up.  
"Of course I'll take him. Where is he?"  
Feuilly brought her down deeper into the tombs. The water here stood even higher, at times reaching their hips as they waded through ancient corridors, barely any light showing the way. She tripped more than once, and was almost glad to see that Bossuet didn't fare much better.  
When she saw Gavroche for a moment she thought he was dead. His skin was grey, eyes sunken deep in their sockets, but when he saw her he pulled himself up and forward, legs dangling uselessly. Éponine hesitated, looked to Feuilly who for the first time wouldn't meet her eye.  
The boy spoke up.  
"You're with the Republic! Are you a Jedi?"  
"No, I'm just ..." Éponine began and trailed off, staring at the boy.  
"Gavroche fell," Bossuet supplied. "We thought he'd just broken his legs but now he can't feel them anymore. We can't help him here."  
Gavroche, who had more than earned the right to a pity party or two, waved the explanation aside. He was skinny, more than Feuilly, and the shock collar looked too large on his fragile neck.   
"Who cares. Do you know any Jedi? Are they here? Have you come to save us?"  
She caught herself at last and held up her hands to placate the boy. She stepped up, gently sat down on the tomb next to Gavroche. He must have been eleven or twelve but he was so small next to her her heart ached with sorrow for his pain.  
"I'm here to get you on a ship to Nar Shaddaa. There are doctors there who can help you."  
Gavroche looked to Bossuet and Feuilly, then turned to Éponine again.  
"What about my friends?"  
"Next time," Feuilly said. "Éponine here'll come back with the Republic to get all of us out, but right now she can only take you."  
"But why? They should come. I'm not leaving without them."  
"Because the guards think you're dead," Bossuet said, kneeling in front of the tomb to look Gavroche in the eye. "If we left they'd notice something was wrong. You they won't miss. And hey, come on. Look at this nerd here-" He pointed at Éponine, who tried not to take offense at being called a nerd. "Someone has to help her out, right?"

Thusly placated Gavroche agreed to leave. He climbed onto Éponine's back, laughed when she almost tripped, having counted on a heavier weight, the weight of a normal boy Gavroche's age.   
Before she took off, Éponine pulled Feuilly aside. He regarded her with a questioning glance but lit up when she pulled out of her pocket a communicator and put it into his hands.  
"If there's an emergency, call Enjolras. He's leading this operation. His frequency's in the comm."  
He nodded, clutched the comm close, trying to express his gratitude but nothing but happy stammering coming out. She patted his shoulder, tried herself at a reassuring smile and hoped it came out alright. 

Feuilly and Bossuet said their goodbyes at the ruins' entrance, couldn't risk escorting them all the way back to the slave camps, especially not when they had to return here on their own with guards watching for any deviant behaviour. For Éponine it was a relief. Their hopeful expressions were more than she could handle.  
"Do I have to go into a kolto tank?" Gavroche asked halfway on their way to the lifts.  
"Probably," Éponine said. "But tell you what, by the time you get out, you'll see Feuilly and Bossuet again, how's that?"  
Acceptable, according to Gavroche, but although he tried to play it cool, she didn't miss his happy smile. She hoped she hadn't just lied to the boy.

It took every bit of misdirection, manipulation, and clever trick in Éponine's handbook to get Gavroche undetected to the top of the valley. Just before they came in view of the lifts she liberated two of the crates lying around waiting to be filled with artifacts from the tombs. In one she helped Gavroche to hide, messing with the lid to leave a hole big enough for him to breathe through. With the tools she had brought with her she deactivated Gavroche's shock collar, checking the time she needed to do it. She shuddered at the thought of how long it would take to do this for every slave in the valley. The other crates she filled with stone and ice from her surroundings.   
"I need to you be as quiet as you can, okay? Don't make a sound even if you think it's me. I'll take off the lid once we're aboard my ship."  
Gavroche nodded, putting on a brave face when she closed the crate ontop of him.

From there it was a simple shell game. She took the crate with rock and ice to the lifts, had it scanned by the guards who cleared it for delivery and distracted them long enough to switch the crates without being seen. She'd pulled this game a hundred times and more during random inspections, and did it again at the top of the lifts, all her focus concentrated on keeping the identical looking crates straight. Then, just to avoid suspicion, she let Montparnasse and the slaves stow away the crates on her ship, taking a leisurely walk to the edge of the cliff as if she couldn't be more carefree, when someone stopped her.   
In the very second she felt the urge to snap at whoever touched her shoulder to get his filthy hands off of her, every instinct in her body started screaming not to. She turned, something heavy pressing down behind her eyes like a cold that came out of nowhere, a weakness that spread inside and left her feeling small and insignificant. Tholomyés stood there, his hand on her shoulder, smiling.   
Shudders ran like pinpricks down her spine but she thought of nothing but the job and the immense power of the Sith lord before her. Tholomyés' smile widened.   
"I understand I have you to thank for these marvelous items," he said. Éponine kept her thoughts running in a circle, a practiced loop of admiration and awe that was as fake as it was effective.   
"Yes, my lord."  
"Good girl. I have a request, then, for you. I'm sure you'll be up to the task."  
Her nerves tore like violin strings to hold back the vile hate rising in her. What would have ordinarly only annoyed her became in the presence of a Sith Lord something terrible and consuming.   
Don't call me girl, she didn't think. I hope I can please my lord, she did think, very clearly to drown out anything else. Aloud she said: "I will try my best, my lord."  
"Of course you will," Tholomyés patted her on the head and she had to lock every muscle in her body down not to maul him right then and there. Her thoughts and wants were no longer her own, every bad thought amplified a thousandfold and every measure of calm and control swept away. All the goodness in the world vanished before a Sith. She was beginning to understand why Thenardier had such a good time everytime they were here.  
"Find me some late fifth millennia artifacts, will you? Ceremonial weapons and robes especially. They are rightfully mine, you know? My bloodline produced some of the greatest Sith of the Kesh and Vjun dynasties. I'm sure you will find these artifacts the equal of the emperor in glory."  
Kill him. Éponine bit her cheeks until blood filled her mouth. He mutilates his slaves, you've seen it. The poor Twi'lek in the stronghold with their lekku missing. He kills the slaves he has no use for. Ten years of being trained in Force defense tactics kept her thoughts on the slaves she saw in the stronghold. He deserves death. He deserved worse than what these Republic fools -  
She clamped down, forced every conscious thought out of her brain. For a split second she thought Tholomyés looked suspicious, but his smarmy grin never wavered and eventually she decided she must have imagined it.   
He stepped back, his hand falling from her shoulder and immediately colour returned to the world. Light and ease flooded her mind, allowed her to breathe freely.  
"I'm sure they are," she said, bowed and asked to be excused, fleeing to the back of her ship. 

Just out of Tholomyés' sight, she fell against the steel shell of the Four O'Clock, swallowing with a dry mouth, wiping at the sweat standing on her brow. Every sound rang like bells, each footstep, each scraping of metal, hum of machine a sign that she had been discovered. Any second now guards would rush at her, catch her, deliver her to her doom. What an idiotic thing to do, to come here for something other than the job.   
Éponine shuddered, slung her arms around herself, tried to regain a semblance of calm. There was no indication she'd been caught. She was smart and resourceful enough to do this, not even a Sith Lord knew everything that went on around him. 

She wanted off this planet. The cold and oppressive twilight that had nothing to do with the pale light filtering in through the clouds of steam left her hollow and exhausted. She shook off the last remnants of her panic and righted herself. And looked right into Montparnasse's face.  
She didn't freeze. Reflexively her expression turned to mild irritation, the default with which she regarded him. He had no way of knowing where she had been. If he asked, she would lie. He didn't ask, not about her whereabouts at least.  
"Are you okay?"  
His voice was unsure, with good reason. This wasn't really a thing they did. They didn't care for one another, didn't show concern. Who knew on what trip he was now. Maybe he'd read somewhere that being nice to people could make you prettier.  
She shrugged.  
"Just taking five before we lift off," she said. Montparnasse looked doubtful but let it slide. Why she learned a second later.  
"I'm riding with you," he said, offering no venue for argument. Now that she paid attention, he did look more sullen than usual. Probably Thenardier or one of the others taking the piss. He took notoriously hard to being teased. But as annoying as she found him at times, at least he was better company than Claquesous or one of her father's other henchmen.

It did mean that Gavroche would have to spend the ride home in the cargo bay. It was a shame. She'd hoped to be able to show him a bit of spaceflight. She did steal away long enough to free him from the crate and leave him with food and water, making sure that once she landed Gavroche would know to hide until the now empty cargo crates had been unloaded.

She kept Montparnasse close to her for most of the flight home, to keep him from wandering, pulled him into conversations that probably gave him more hope than she meant to give him. He knew she didn't like human men any better than Twi'lek men, but his heart cared little. She'd never been in love, and the pained and forlorn looks he sometimes shot her when he thought she wasn't paying attention made her resolve never to fall for anyone. A small part of her felt sorry for him.   
A bigger part of her just wanted to push him out the airlock.  
"Thenardier wants us to go out and find some real artifacts again," he said, groaning at the sheer thought of having to work for his money. "What a drag. We'll end up offing some Cartel mercenaries again, and they never have the sense to go down quietly."  
"How terrible of them," she said, knocking the knuckles of her hand lightly against the Jedi doll on her dashboard. Its mechanism sprung to life, offering a small dance against the expanse of blueish white hyperspace lanes. 

The encounter with Tholomyés still sat heavily on her mind. If her parents hadn't drilled self control into her on the threat of pain, she would have attacked him or given herself away.  
She thought of Feuilly and Bossuet, working right now in the icy ruins of Ziost. A few hours on Ziost and Éponine had nearly broken. These two lived every day with the threat of being discovered. When she'd set out for Ziost a few days ago, she'd agreed to gather information for Enjolras and Combeferre and nothing more. A prank on her father, a soothing balm for her conscience. She had believed she could talk to these people without being affected. Perhaps her father could have. Perhaps even Montparnasse could have remained impartial. But the images of a child's broken body and the hopeful faces of two grown men, relying on the help of people who didn't even know they existed, had broken her resolve and replaced it with something else. She couldn't transport all one hundred slaves away from Ziost. 

But she'd damn well do more than just deliver a bunch of facts.


	8. Chapter 8

Enjolras became impatient over waiting for news about five minutes after the Four O'Clock's lift off. He kept picking up random objects and putting them down again, bottles, datapads, cards.  
"If you mess with my deck again, I'll give you a rattle to play with," Grantaire said when Enjolras reached for another of Grantaire's cards. He flushed red and curled his hands into his lap instead.   
"I didn't notice -"  
"-you were doing it. Yeah, I figured. Let me get through this game and I'll play you a couple rounds to distract you, how's that?"  
Bahorel scoffed, peering over his cards.  
"You're just hoping someone'll let you win for once."  
Grantaire made a rude gesture at Bahorel but his focus remained on Enjolras, who said:  
"I ... ah, don't know how to play pazaak."  
To Enjolras it was an admission of weakness. The idea he was ignorant of something, even something as trivial as to how to play a card game, made him reach for his empty glass. He pushed it around on the table, likely expecting Grantaire to make fun of him. Grantaire did not.  
"I'll teach you, then. Come on you can watch this game and I'll explain the rules as we go."  
When they first met Combeferre had thought Enjolras didn't like Grantaire very much. He'd all but interrogated him over his past, seemed to look for faults he could use to condemn the man. But either Combeferre had misinterpreted his actions or he had found no faults after all. He got to watch as Enjolras smiled and scooted closer to Grantaire who leaned back and threw his arm around the back of Enjolras' chair. He explained the rules in a voice too low for Combeferre to hear. Their heads together, both smiling, if he didn't know they'd just met a day ago, Combeferre would have mistaken them for a couple. He wondered what it was like. To be able to act this freely, to find someone easy on the eyes and act upon that first instinct. 

Enjolras pointed at a card on the table, leaning forward into Grantaire's space a bit to do so. Grantaire rewarded his subtle effort with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open, as if he couldn't quite believe Enjolras would willingly come this close to him. It seemed hard to believe that this innocent exchange was the domain of Sith, that if Combeferre indulged similarly, just a little, he would be condemned to fall. He began to understand why the Order let only the most steadfast of its members out in the world alone. Barely twenty-four hours on Nar Shaddaa and he'd contemplated breaking the Code almost as often as he'd recited it. 

"Someone has a crush."  
Combeferre flinched at the sudden appearance of Joly. His sense of the Force still hadn't recovered. He hadn't been this blind to the world since he was a child, and the transition sat badly with him. It didn't help that he'd begun feeling darkness, just little flickers of it from time to time. They made him uneasy as he tried to tell himself they were not projections of his own self, falling from his place in the light he had worked almost two decades to attain.   
"Enjolras doesn't do crushes," Combeferre said after he collected himself. He hoped that was true, anyway. He was just beginning to realise that following his friends on the holonet did not come close to knowing them. He'd never known about Enjolras' fussy hands.  
"Wasn't talking about Enjolras."  
"Grantaire? I couldn't say."  
Joly shook his head, although at what Combeferre couldn't presume to guess.  
"You're hopeless." He turned to the group at the table. "Hey, R, I'm making myself a drink."  
Grantaire waved absently, showing Enjolras how to make his own side-deck while Bahorel smugly beat Grantaire at the third and final round. His smugness waned a bit when he didn't appear to notice.  
Combeferre debated whether or not to join Joly and Bahorel at the bar or to go find something else to do when Enjolras waved him over.  
"Come here, play cards with us."

He went and hoped against hope he wouldn't be the third wheel. He wasn't, for all the wrong reasons. Just as he sat down Grantaire's holocommunicator rang.  
"Ah, shit. I'm sorry, I have to take this," he said, apologetic and pleading for Combeferre's and Enjolras' forgiveness as he got up and took the call. He left and with him the only buffer between them that wouldn't have made this excruciating.   
Enjolras and Combeferre looked at each other, trapped in sudden awkward silence neither knew how to breach. Once again Combeferre didn't know which Enjolras he should talk to. Tease him about his apparent fondness for Grantaire like he would have his old childhood friend? Speculate about the news Éponine might bring back like he would the Republic politician who agreed to take on his cause? If he did either, he'd lose the other. If he did either badly, he'd lose them both. Combeferre hadn't learned to suppress everything to do with emotions to trust himself now.   
"So ..." Enjolras said, breaking the silence with something worse. He'd begun playing with Grantaire's cards again, dividing the deck, putting it back, turning over cards at random. His face betrayed nothing. Combeferre sat and waited for Enjolras to do something he couldn't. He still had a hint of that smile Grantaire had put there, making him look younger, something someone like Grantaire could fall in love with. Like Combeferre could if he was still capable of it.   
"Reminds me when we used to visit Aunt Trela at the port cantina."  
Enjolras attempted a smile.  
"I don't ... " Combeferre wracked his brains but he couldn't remember. He hadn't even known Trela had fulfilled her dream of opening a place. "That must have been after …"  
"Oh," Enjolras' face fell and he stared at the table instead of looking Combeferre in the eye. "You're right. That was with Courfeyrac, you weren't …"

He wasn't there. Eighteen years, dozens of lazy afternoons, hundreds of parties, thousands of school days, a whole lifetime missed. While Enjolras and Courfeyrac begged their aunt for gossip of gunslinging spacefarers, forging bonds of friendship, Combeferre meditated on the force on Ilum's icy temple grounds. While Enjolras grew into a man full of fire and heart, Combeferre volunteered to go to Tython and study its ancient records. A dozen millennia's worth of dead Sith bloodlines in exchange for the only friends he'd ever known.  
"I'm sorry …" he said, so quietly he wasn't sure Enjolras understood him over the music playing in the background.   
But Enjolras frowned at him.  
"Don't."  
Combeferre barely bit back the urge to apologise a second time and took to examining the hem of his robes, searching for tears he knew weren't there. He wished he had gone to the bar with Joly and Bahorel, as comfortable company as only strangers could be.   
"I should ..." he said, pushing his chair back still searching for an excuse to leave the table. For the fraction of a second Enjolras looked panicked. Combeferre was halfway out of his chair.   
"I missed you."  
He stilled, put in emotional carbonite by words spoken quickly and forcefully, a hail mary attempt to keep him in place.  
He sat back down.   
The cheerful and open boy he remembered would have said I missed you, not the stonefaced man Combeferre barely recognised as his old friend.  
He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Enjolras was faster once again.  
"I thought of you every day. But you never answered my letters. Eventually I tried to stop thinking about you. But I still missed you."  
Combeferre had thought his friends had forgotten about him, had thrown himself into his Jedi studies, banishing the disappointment and resentment like his teachers taught him to.   
"I never got ..."  
There had been no letters. Even though apparently Enjolras had been writing them.  
"The Jedi teach to let go of attachments," Combeferre said.   
And he saw, like a flickering light in a far corner of his mind, a spark of vicious, terrible anger. Years of training extinguished it.   
"Yeah," Enjolras said, knocking his knee lightly against a chair to hear it shift. "I know."

Grantaire came back with the face of a man about to ask an impossible favour.  
"Nuzz-Nuzz had to cancel," he said, frowning. "Came down with something nasty."  
"Will she be alright?" Combeferre asked, still wondering from which of the galactic species a cantina dancer named Nuzz-Nuzz would come.   
"Yeah, she'll be okay. I sent a doctor her way just in case. But it means I'll have to find a replacement."  
For some reason he was looking at Combeferre.  
"I don't know anyone who can ... oh no! No! I can't dance!"  
"Come on, it would be great." Grantaire melted into a pleading puddle all but going on his knees before him. Enjolras watched with an amused twist of his mouth. "Jedi are exotic-"  
" _Exotic_?"  
"Fine, exciting. Think about it, a paragon of virtue like yourself tempting the people into passion. People would break down my doors to get that experience."  
Combeferre didn't much feel like a paragon of virtue with Grantaire in front of him looking up out of big dark eyes begging him to tempt people.   
It was hard to resist Grantaire. He wouldn't have if the mere thought of dancing in front of people didn't make him break out in anxiety sweats.  
"No. No, I don't ... no!"  
Grantaire deflated, but didn't remain so for long. With a second wind he pulled himself up and turned his attention on Enjolras.  
"Enj, dear, good man, won't you do poor old me one tiny little favour?"  
Enjolras met his pleading gaze with a stony one of his own, arms crossed, lips pursed. He didn't even grace Grantaire's request with an answer.   
They held this little stand-off for long enough Combeferre doubted either would budge. But eventually Grantaire admitted defeat. He sighed theatrically, making both Enjolras and Combeferre laugh.  
"Fine. Here I go out of my way to help you out and this is how you repay me. At least man the bar while I make some calls. There's a Mandalorian I know ..."  
"What if a customer comes in?" Enjolras said at the same time as Combeferre said: "I don't know how to mix drinks."  
Grantaire looked at them as if the answer was self-evident.  
"Bahorel'll teach you how to make Joly's usual."

Grantaire went off to find a replacement for his sole exotic dancer, and Bahorel did teach Enjolras and Combeferre how to mix one of the three drinks this bar sold on a regular basis. Just for fun, and because otherwise they'd fall into impatiently waiting for Éponine's return, they made Bahorel and Joly teach them a couple of the other drinks, too.   
There were a lot.  
"Grantaire comes up with them in his free time," Joly explained when they went through a whole stack of menus, each with different drinks, each looking pristine and unused.   
"It's his hobby," Bahorel added.   
"That and Pazaak."  
"Yeah, but at least he's good at drinks."  
Joly chortled, but didn't defend his friend. Combeferre went through some of Grantaire's more recent notes, scribbled into a datapad with a list of ingredients, some crossed out, some underlined.   
The most recent entry was titled 'Scholar and Firebrand' a set of two shots taken right after the other with liquor hard enough to give him heartburn. He wondered how Grantaire came up with these drinks.  
He was still trying to puzzle out at which point he was supposed to set the shots on fire, when Enjolras nudged his shoulder.   
Combeferre looked up to find Enjolras looking a little unsure but smiling in a way that reminded him of the smile he'd given Grantaire earlier.   
"I'd like to talk sometime. Properly, I mean."  
Combeferre thought he finally understood why something as simple as friendship could lead a Jedi to the dark side of the Force. Because in return for this one thing, for Enjolras to make an effort to bridge the gap between them, he would do anything.  
The force of that feeling overwhelmed him, the urge so strong he could barely stand against it, felt himself drown in it. A lifetime of missed opportunities and Enjolras offering to make up the time they'd lost. He couldn't begin to describe how much this meant to him.  
He managed a nod and something he hoped would pass for a smile, before he turned around, gripping the hilt of his lightsaber as some kind of anchor.  
"There is no emotion, there is peace ... " he recited quietly. Enjolras looked at him strangely, but he appeared the only one to have noticed. Joly and Bahorel were in the process of 'getting rid of' some of the almost empty bottles that would 'need replacing anyway guys, come on'.  
"I never understood that line," Enjolras said while carefully putting back the stack of unused menus. "Of course us mere mortals are probably not meant to understand it. But I always thought … the absence of emotion isn't really peace, is it? You can be happy and at peace, and sad and at peace. Even filled to the brim with ice cold rage, you can be at peace, if you can act on it."  
"Koro Kasra's paradox," Combeferre said. "A meditation upon the observation that people sometimes appear calm despite allowing themselves to be ruled by emotion. Master Kasra determined that the peace brought by emotion is a false one and is as fickle as the emotion it is based on. True peace comes from emotion's complete absence."  
Enjolras frowned. Combeferre expected some kind of philosophical rebuttal, even wholesale rejection. Enjolras, looking from this angle terribly sad and disappointed, surprised him again.  
"It's going to take more than talk, is it? I thought it would be easy, that it would just take time, but you're a Jedi now. Can you even be-"  
"Hey, good news!"  
Enjolras was interrupted by Grantaire's return.  
"You found a dancer?"  
"I found a dancer! Had to pull him out of retirement and bribe his wife with a month's worth of my best stock, but he'll do it."  
Combeferre was glad for the distraction and gladly let Grantaire spin the tale of his odyssey to find a replacement for Nuzz-Nuzz. It was better than thinking about the question Enjolras had been about to ask. The truth was, despite the flickers of emotions he'd been confronted with since leaving Tython, he didn't know the answer.


	9. Chapter 9

It was almost a blessing, getting away from Enjolras, and he didn't know how to feel about that. While Enjolras went to procure a weapon for himself, aided by Bahorel and Joly who would cheerfully lead him astray into various dens of iniquity as often as they could, Combeferre stayed behind. To muddle the conundrum on how to arrange the Jedi code with the need to bond with another person. His idea had been to engage in a little experiment of alcohol vis á vis its purported quality of providing truth, by means of the bottles Joly had claimed needed emptying. Grantaire didn't live up to his profession and refused to ply him with more of it, citing various moral objections on the basis of leading virtuous Jedi into temptation.

"I've never had a temptation in my life," Combeferre said morosely into the sorry remains of his bottle.  
"Temptation leads to bad hangovers," Grantaire said, leaning over the bar where he'd up to a few minutes ago assessed the damage Joly's and Bahorel's impromptu housecleaning had done. He had his head propped up on his hand, trying to look funny and precocious and failing miserably by virtue of being unbearably hot. In his twenty-six years of being alive Combeferre had not had a lot of opportunity to put himself out there, so to speak, and he assumed that that might have had something to do with his rampant attraction to a random bartender on the most random of all planets, which wasn't even a planet, but a moon. A moon which was also unbearably loud, not just physically but loud in the force as well, causing him to make a concerted effort to shut himself off from anything the force might want to tell him, like to quit drinking and get his head clear.  
"That's what my masters would say," Combeferre said, not a complaint because the idea of Grantaire 'instructing' him, the airquotes being the imperative thing, was a not an altogether unpleasant thought. "Not the part about the hangovers, obviously."  
"Obviously," Grantaire said easily. "But I imagine you have a big headache already, what with your Force sense. It recover yet?"  
Combeferre shook his head. It was true that the Force on the moon made his head ache and he appreciated Grantaire's concern over it.  
"Everything's so loud." A thought occurred to him and he looked up at Grantaire who appeared to be oblivious to his suspicion. "How do you know about the Force sense? I never said anything."  
Grantaire's face didn't so much as twitch.  
"I've met Jedi before," he said, which was a perfectly fine explanation. Combeferre didn't buy it for a second. Grantaire seemed to realise that too since he elected to distract Combeferre instead. He pushed away from the bar. "Come on, let's take a walk, clear your head."  
Grantaire took him by the arm, which was a good thing since his drinks had been stronger than he initially thought, causing Combeferre to hold onto Grantaire's arm for stability that had never deserted him before. 

He was taken, more or less consensually with Grantaire applying only gentle force to stop him from running onto the open street, into the relative fresh air of what counted as outside on Nar Shaddaa. The sudden cool air did bring back a measure of sobriety and while Grantaire led him down the street further into the entertainment district, he recovered a handful of his faculties, enough to remind him that he had behaved like a sullen teenager bemoaning his life in front of a near perfect stranger.   
"You must think me very foolish," Combeferre said, noting pleased that at least he didn't slur his speech anymore.   
"I think you very Jedi."  
He had expected a diplomatic answer and wasn't sure if this counted. He debated if he should be offended and chose to be inquisitive instead.  
"How so?"  
"All of them are a little bit like you when they first leave the Order," Grantaire said, nudging Combeferre gently to lead him down a quieter road. "Part wide-eyed, part horrified, part horny. Honestly, if you've spent years tucked away in some ancient monastery, you're allowed to mourn the things you missed out on."

Food stalls were abundant everywhere in the district but here they looked less geared towards tourists and more the local alien populace. Several of the vendors and customers greeted Grantaire by name, or what Combeferre thought was his name as pronounced by Gran, Ithorians, and Neimoidians. They stopped by a Gand vendor, simple but thick carpets laid out around bubbling pots of undefinable but delicious smelling foods. Grantaire pushed Combeferre down in front of one of them and sat across. Combeferre carefully sidestepped Grantaire's implication of him being horny, and sought refuge in the only topic he knew anything about.  
"Not everyone. I bet Revan wasn't like that during the Mandalorian wars."  
Usually when Combeferre started talking about some historical figure his admiration was only matched by his conversation partner's confusion or indifference. Grantaire was different. His eyes lit up.  
"You read history?"  
"I'm a historian," Combeferre said. "I specialise in the history of Sith bloodline ideology, but you can't help pick up things from time to time."  
A couple of small cups surrounded the pot and Grantaire dunked one of them into the stew, filling it and drinking. Combeferre mimicked what he did, found the food pleasant enough, although he wondered how Grantaire had come upon this place. Did he often stroll around, sampling alien cuisines?  
"Sounds riveting." To his surprise Combeferre detected no sarcasm from Grantaire. "But I promise you, the first time Revan ever saw a Twi'lek dancer there was fainting involved."  
Despite himself Combeferre laughed.  
"How can you say that! Revan was one of the most important historical figures of the last millennium. Scholars are still arguing over whether Revan was even just one person."  
"Excactly. One person or a dozen, that's what Revan was. A person. Or people. And people get weird, especially if they spend all their time in the company of force ghosts and dusty old masters. This moon is a lot to take in even for hardened spacers."  
Grantaire was an animated speaker. As he gestured across the boulevard trying to encompass all of Nar Shaddaa in one sweep, Combeferre only narrowly avoided specks of food flying from his almost empty bowl.  
"You know a lot about Jedi psychology," he said mildly. Grantaire let his bowl sink, frowning for a split second before shrugging and refilling.  
"You meet a lot of people in this line of work," he said, although he was more guarded now, holding his bowl close to his chest, crossing his legs where before he had spread them out across the carpets, lounging like an exotic entertainer between shifts. Combeferre had preferred that Grantaire to this somehow smaller version of him and berated himself for probing. He tried his so far successful tactic of falling back on historical trivia.  
"The Baran Do believe that too many people in one place create knots in the force, inhibiting its flow. I never understood what they meant. Now I think I get it."  
Grantaire relaxed a little, a move so subtle Combeferre would have missed it if he hadn't been looking for it.   
"The Cerean practitioners would disagree. They think the more minds are touching each other, the more knowledge is created in the universe, enriching the force. They would have loved this place."  
"And you? What do you believe?"  
Grantaire looked up, clearly startled by the question. The surprise made way for lazy indifference as he leaned back again, searching for a credit chit in his pockets.   
"Me? I don't believe in anything. Which, of course, would make me a terrible Cerean practitioner. Or any kind of Force user, really."  
He paid, waved away Combeferre's attempts to pay for his half of the meal and came fluidly to his feet. The food and fresh air had chased away the last of Combeferre's inebriation and he followed easily enough, years of coming out of meditation finally paying off.

Instead of returning to the cantina straight away, Grantaire suggested taking the long way around, through a small holo-park. Representations of trees and shrubbery in neon lights didn't fool even the most oblivious of passersby. But as people with places to be kept to the main roads, the place provided some relative peace. They continued their conversation, Combeferre finding himself for the first time in a long while with a partner who not only didn't mind his focus on book knowledge but had plenty of his own to spare.  
"You think believing in something is that important?"  
"Of course. Any dogma will do, too, but you need one, no more, no less. Else all that force talent is just going to waste."  
"No, that can't be right. There's a lot more to Jedi training than just reciting the Code. You need to be able to channel the force, it's a skill, like learning a language or making art."  
They rounded a holotree, tactfully pretending not to see two drunk aliens messily making out behind it, the drink having made them blissfully unaware that light constructs didn't typically offer a lot of cover. In doing so their shoulders brushed, a momentary contact that nonetheless made Combeferre draw back, forcing himself to take deep breaths and remind himself of what Grantaire had claimed. That most if not all Jedi felt like this, perhaps even greats like Revan. If he was a bit horny, that didn't have to mean anything as long as he didn't let his emotions control his actions.   
"Really? It doesn't strike you as odd that every Force tradition producing even averagely competent force users has all the trappings of a cult?"  
"The Jedi aren't ... . Okay, but not all ..." Combeferre made to list Force philosophies that didn't rely on pure devotion, but came up short. His first instinct, to name the Jedi order, wasn't even worth pursuing, since ever since he arrived, reciting the code was the only thing that had kept him from going insane. Grantaire nodded satisfied, but he still elaborated on his point. Another person might have accused him of being in love with his own voice, but Combeferre didn't since he was rather partial to it, too.  
"Jedi, Sith, Jal Shey, Voss Mystics, the Order of Shasa, each and every one has unfailing devotion to their creed baked into their philosophy. The Jedi's frontline warriors were trained in their philosophy since before they stopped wearing diapers. The Sith have built an entire society around the idea that following their Code to the exclusion of all else is not only the best option, it's the only one. Voss Mystics believe their visions are all that stands between their civilisation and complete annihilation, the Order of Shasa sees intruders as the ultimate evil, because they could threaten the world view they have carefully built up. Name any one Force philosophy, and I'll show you a cult. Even the so-called Grey Jedi, who claim to have forsaken all force traditions, have only swapped one belief for another."  
"Neutrality is a statement in itself," Combeferre said, recognising in Grantaire's rant Zeison Sha teachings. He'd never met anyone not trained in the force this well-read in it, but he still didn't know if he agreed. "Still, there's got to be more to it than that. You could make a philosophy out of anything. If belief is all it takes, anyone with enough of it could be a Force user."  
"Maybe it's not," Grantaire conceded. They had almost reached the cantina and Combeferre didn't know if it had been him or Grantaire who slowed down their pace to draw out the conversation. "But you can't do it without. Imagine if that was all it took, though, believing hard enough. Enjolras would be the most powerful force user the galaxy has ever seen."  
Combeferre laughed. It wasn't the first time he imagined Enjolras as a Jedi, but it was the first time he considered how much havoc he would have wrought with his convictions as strong as they were.  
"It would be terrifying," he agreed.   
"And beautiful," Grantaire said. "You couldn't help but watch."  
Combeferre looked over, saw the faint blush on Grantaire's cheeks, his faraway dreamy look, and tried not to be disappointed.  
"Beautiful is right," he said and left it at that.


	10. Chapter 10

The morning of Éponine's return from Ziost Combeferre woke earlier than usual. For a moment he didn't know where he was, expected to be on Tython in his small quarters, or having fallen asleep in the library again. Then awareness came back to him and he sat up, looking around the sparse guest room Grantaire had once again offered without asking for money.   
It was unusually quiet, the din of Nar Shaddaa's hectic life cycles muted behind the solid durasteel walls. No music played downstairs at the bar, which meant Joly must have gone home. Maybe that had woken him up, the sudden absence of sound. Figuring that now he was awake he might as well get up, Combeferre dressed in only the first layer of his robes, leaving the brown overcoat behind for now. He didn't need it in the consistent warmth of the cantina.   
He passed Enjolras' room, listened for a moment but hearing nothing, and went downstairs, hoping to find a kitchen. He wasn't particularly wild on the thought of going outside and getting caf in some shady Nar Shaddaa joint. He preferred this shady Nar Shaddaa joint. 

An employee kitchen did reveal itself, the door wide open and Éponine, Bahorel and Enjolras huddled over the central table, jugs of caf next to them. Éponine in loose work overalls, Bahorel in the clothes from yesterday, Enjolras with wet curls and in a dark bathrobe that for a split second looked like the overcoat of a Sith. Combeferre shook his head at the image.   
Éponine had given only a brief account of her trip the night before, eager to get to bed and sleep off the excitement. But her descriptions of the dark side world still hung in his mind, making him see Sith everywhere. He didn't know how the frontline warriors of their order shook off the dark so easily. Then again, Jedi had been lost to the dark just for being on a moon near Korriban, so maybe it wasn't Combeferre's weakness alone.

He listened to Éponine give a detailed account of what she'd found out while he poured himself a cup of caf. One hundred on an Imperial heartworld, who believed the Republic had sent their best people to do the job. They tried to come up with a plan to shut down the shock collars faster. As of right now they presented a fatal bottle neck in their plans.  
For the first time Combeferre doubted if they could do it. What chance did they have, really? Few resources, fewer allies, and the wrath of the Dark side against them.  
He sat at Enjolras' side who acknowledged him with a brief nod, and an explanation for his unorthodox clothes.  
"Still can't get used to sonic showers. Grantaire let me use his," he said before returning his attention to the hologram they had laid out.  
"Forty-five people in Éponine's cargo hold. It looks bigger. Are you sure you can't hold more people?"  
"Not if you don't want to trigger the orbital life sign detectors. The gold alloy lining in the ship fools scanners but only to a certain threshold. Anymore and we'll have the Imperial military on us."  
"That still leaves over fifty left unaccounted for. I already called my cousin in the Alderaanian Space Corps, she won't help."  
Enjolras stabbed his finger into the item on the to do list that displayed his cousin's name.   
"Hire mercenaries," Bahorel suggested.   
"Where? We needed a bad pun to find you."  
"I take offense to that."  
As one they turned around to find Grantaire leaning in the doorway, wearing a wry grin and a very tight shirt. Combeferre swallowed hard. So did Enjolras.  
"Picture my face when I pass Joly just now and he says he had to let himself in, because someone-" Bahorel had the decency to shrink a little, although he was still grinning. "Couldn't be arsed to do his job. And now I find you lot in my kitchen, planning the heist of the century."  
"You should help us," Enjolras said. The amusement vanished from Grantaire's face. He didn't look angry, or afraid. Combeferre searched his face for emotion and found nothing, save perhaps for the exhaustion that seemed to surround Grantaire like a shroud. He kept something hidden, some feeling or knowledge he didn't want to share with the group. Combeferre doubted that anyone could be free of fear at the thought of invading a Sith homeworld, especially a bartender from Nar Shaddaa, but Grantaire's face was empty.  
"No thank you," he said. "I like Sith Lords only when they're full of alcohol and have a straw for a lightsaber. Which reminds me, I have to go mix Joly his drink. Leave some caf for me, will you?"

Enjolras wore his disappointment for the world to see, but he turned back to Bahorel and Éponine, throwing ideas back and forth, pretending Grantaire hadn't shot him down. Combeferre, who felt lost and helpless as it was and didn't need to have his lack of tactical experience shoved in his face like that, got up and followed Grantaire out of the room. He was, as he said he'd be, behind the bar, mixing the dark green drink he'd called the Sith Lord for Joly who took it with gratefully outstretched hands.  
"Do you have a Jedi Knight, too?" Combeferre asked and delighted in the way Grantaire's carefully put on neutrality made way for a promising grin.  
"Do I. Never served one to an actual Jedi, though."  
"First time for everything," Combeferre said, who had also never had a drink named after his profession. He watched Grantaire mix his drink, more subdued than last time around owing to the early hour. It was still a spectacle to watch. Grantaire was captivating to look at, even with the dark shadows under his eyes and the patchy stubble on his chin. When he reached up behind him to grab a bottle of the top shelf liquor his shirt rode up to reveal a sliver of skin that had Combeferre's mouth go dry.  
No emotion, peace. No ignorance, knowledge- His desperate recital of the Jedi code died in its beginnings when Grantaire turned around, eyes shining with appreciation for whatever he was about to serve, love for his craft in the crowsfeet around his eyes. He would love to abolish his ignorance about how Grantaire might look like without those tantalisingly tight clothes on him.   
He was pulled out of his desperate, and juvenile, longing by a too loud snort from his right.  
"Someone's forgetting his vows," Joly said and the way he waggled his eyebrows told Combeferre that he wasn't half as discreet as he thought he'd been. He felt himself blush, heat pooling in his cheeks and on the tips of his ears and gratefully reached for the drink Grantaire handed him. White and gold liquid glittering in the low light of the empty bar, with a green straw and a paper umbrella with the symbol of the Jedi order on it. A starburst sword on a wing-tipped shield, the weapon to drive back the darkness, the shield to stave off passion.   
"Jedi do not swear vows," Combeferre said after he had taken a sip and closed his eyes in bliss as the sweet and fresh taste of the drink hit him. It tasted like the Light felt, exactly like it did the first time Combeferre used the Force and felt a tension release, the power inside him finding an outlet and making him calm for the first time in months. He barely tasted the alcohol, just a hint of sharpness going down, the gleaming edge of a lightsaber harmless to anyone but the vile.  
"Oh? I thought you weren't supposed to-" Joly tried to pump his hips, an action not made easier by sitting on a bar stool. He ended up knocking against the bar, but the gesture came across nonetheless.  
"We are … discouraged from pursuing passion."   
He tried to sound definitive and like he didn't just contemplate throwing the Code to the wind over a bartender with too-short shirts.   
He might have succeeded, might have regained his composure and settled back into himself if Grantaire hadn't at that moment smiled at him, almost shy like he was as unsure of himself as Combeferre was, and said: "A shame, really."  
Combeferre almost swallowed his straw.

Enjolras and the others were lured into the bar proper by sounds of coughing and laughing. Combeferre saw them coming from over Joly's shoulder who pounded him on the back, laughing. At least, he thought, this conversation had eased the tension of a hardworking student, which was something a Jedi should be proud of. Bringing comfort and happiness to others, even at the cost of being hopelessly embarrassed.  
Grantaire, still not asking for any money which made Combeferre ponder not for the first time how he kept himself afloat, started on another array of drinks, accepting a cup of caf from Bahorel with a grateful nod. Éponine was served something clear and sharp enough to drive tears into Combeferre's eyes from three seats down. Bahorel skipped the order and leaned over the bar, fishing a bottle out from under it. It left Grantaire with two shots in his hand, one a shimmering light grey and brown, the colour of Jedi robes and glittering holocrons, the other a concoction of green and yellow, the exact colours of House Panteer, topped with a foam of golden yellow, not unlike Enjolras' curls. Enjolras, who had his hand already outstretched, frowned when Grantaire wouldn't hand him his drink.  
"You have that look about you," Grantaire said. "You don't get a drink if you ask something impossible of me."  
"Helping us is not impossible," Enjolras said and yelped when Grantaire unceremoniously dumped the shots down the drain.   
"What did you do that for?" Enjolras leaned over the bar, staring after his drink. Then he frowned and leaned a little bit farther. "Wait, is that a -"  
Grantaire interrupted him.  
"You're a royal of the Republic, aren't you? You don't need the help of a lowly commoner such as myself."

With one fell swoop Grantaire had pushed all of Enjolras' buttons. For the next ten minutes they were all regaled with a monologue about the power of any individual over their institutions, the importance of civic duty in the face of atrocious crimes against liberty, and a frustrated rant over House Panteer's nobles burying their heads in the sand while their own were assassinated and dethroned. Without breaking his stride Enjolras segued into a thorough takedown of the Treaty of Coruscant, barely paused for breath when Grantaire handed him a drink after all - this one in Republic blue - and didn't even pay attention when Éponine threw her hands in the air and told the group to call her if anything important happened before she marched out of the bar, leaving Grantaire to nod and smile at Enjolras with a self-satisfied grin that was as charming to Combeferre as it was infuriating to Enjolras.  
"You don't even care, do you?" he accused Grantaire as he finished, still working on his first drink while Combeferre was on his second Jedi Knight, feeling decidedly less Jedi like with every sip.   
"You seem to care enough for both of us."  
Once again Combeferre noticed that Grantaire hadn't actually answered the question.   
Before Enjolras could start to lecture him on political apathy, Grantaire continued: "It's nothing personal, but there's too much risk involved for my tastes. The Sith have a cruel sense of humour and I don't want to catch their attention. I prefer all my limbs attached to my body, you see?"  
Combeferre saw, and heard, and knew that if he hadn't been so hyperaware of every little thing Grantaire said and did, he'd never have known to say what he did: "All your friends are doing it."  
Both Grantaire and Enjolras threw him a glance that suggested they thought he'd gone insane.  
"Are you peer-pressuring me?" Grantaire laughed and replaced Combeferre's empty glass with a full one. "I'm not thirteen anymore."  
Combeferre was peer-pressuring Grantaire and he wasn't about to stop.  
"Do you really want to be the only one here who doesn't give a shit? Even Joly offered to help with the wounded when he heard what we were doing. Éponine isn't even asking for money anymore. Bahorel promised to get Enjolras some armour. You're the odd one out right now."  
Grantaire looked genuinely disturbed by that idea. He busied himself putting the empty glasses in the washer.  
"I have other friends," he mumbled with no real conviction.  
"I know. And we need you to talk to them. I'm not asking you to storm Ziost's defenses. But you seem to know everyone, and people like you. If anyone can find us more ships, it's you. Enjolras and I would be immeasurably grateful."  
Combeferre didn't miss the brief eye contact between Grantaire and Enjolras, and the way Enjolras' affirming nod painted a blush on Grantaire's face. Disappointment and something like heartbreak warred in Combeferre's chest, a feeling so unfamiliar and unpleasant he longed for the quiet solitude of Tython's libraries.  
"Alright," Grantaire said, accompanied by a defeated sigh. "You win. I didn't realise Jedi become vicious manipulators when drunk. I'll keep my feelers out. And … look, I'm not setting foot on Ziost, but you're going to need more people. There's someone I know, a former Jedi, who might be willing to help. He's on Balmorra, and I can point you to a resistance base who will know where exactly."  
"Thank you. And I'm not drunk," said Combeferre, at once realising that he was. He didn't mind for the way it fooled him into believing that Grantaire's smile was for him.


	11. Chapter 11

The local time was 34 standard hours in the afternoon when Enjolras and Combeferre's shuttle landed on Balmorra, one of the few private landing pads not controlled by the Empire. Combeferre had been away from Tython for almost two weeks now, and the wave of loss and grim determination that hit him when they met the resistance fighters drove any homesickness away. Enjolras quietly fumed the entirety of their conversation with the rebels, abandoned by the Republic, left behind to fend for themselves against an overwhelming enemy, fighting tooth and nail to hang onto their freedom. Their attitudes towards Combeferre and Enjolras cooled markedly when they learned they weren't here to join the fight.  
"There are other people who need us," Enjolras said, almost plaintively. "But we'll come back."  
"That's what the Republic said, too," The resistance fighter said and it was as clear a dismissal as it came. But he did point them in the right direction to get them out of his hair, and that was how Enjolras and Combeferre went behind enemy lines on rented speeders, looking for a Jedi who had left the Order. Combeferre couldn't imagine turning his back on the Jedi forever. True, he had left against orders, lied about being on an archaeological dig, to follow an emotional urge his masters summarily rejected. But he planned to return, he still believed in the Order, and once someone was no longer Jedi, one had one foot already in the dark side. He believed that, even when the thought of not seeing Enjolras or Grantaire again made his chest constrict.

They reached an Imperial listening post shortly after sunset, getting off their speeders wincing, both unused to driving long distances. The listening post itself had appeared abandoned, but they still approached with caution, Combeferre reaching out through the Force to sense any living beings. He felt nine forceblind people, likely Imperial soldiers, fast asleep, and one presence that noticed his eye on them.   
"Sleeping," Combeferre said. "All of them. The Jedi is close."  
"Are you sure?"  
It did strike him as strange, that the Imperials hadn't posted a watch.  
They crested a small hill and came onto the post proper. The soldiers were there, alright. Walking, talking, going about their business and completely ignoring the Jedi and Republic noble that had just walked into their camp. Enjolras waved his hand in front of one soldier's face, who blinked at him and then went around him to continue on his way.  
"Please do not disturb them," said a soft, lilting voice beside them. Combeferre and Enjolras turned to find a man in simple clothes, what must have been Jedi robes once upon a time but had been tailored to be shorter and fit more snugly with a patchwork of colourful fabric creating an array of additional pockets. He wore his hair long and decorated with small flowers, the kind of weeds that grew on Balmorra in abundance. In his hands, carefully cradling it, he held a blue flower.  
"You're Jehan," Enjolras said. There was no other option. Grantaire had described his friend as an oddball and had made an understatement. Combeferre would have mistaken him for a loyal Jedi from the waves of calm that radiated from him, except for the jewellery that peeked out from underneath his clothes, fragile bracelets and pendants from precious gemstones, silver, and gold. Jedi did not hold with material possessions. They didn't often hold with flowers, either. Jehan seemed to notice their curiosity because he said:  
"It's a Balmorra Blue. The last of its kind. I came here to rescue it from the war."  
"Is it useful?" Enjolras asked as Jehan brought the flower over to his own speeder, as patchworked as his clothes were, with spaces tacked on for an array of plants. Jehan shook his head like a disappointed school teacher.  
"A thing does not have to be useful to be precious," he said. "The Balmorra Blue is remarkable. It is in looks almost identical to the Climbing Boca, a trait which helps it propagate in its natural habitat, but other than the Boca, the Blue thrives even in pollution. Is it not remarkable?"  
Enjolras, who was still in a bad mood after their meeting with the resistance, shrugged.  
"A mud flower that tries to be something it's not. Aren't there more important things to save in a warzone?"  
"I see no botanist is lost on you," Jehan said, finishing up with securing the Balmorra Blue to his speeder. "We should continue speaking elsewhere. My hold on these people will not last much longer."

They followed Jehan away from the listening post and across a cratermarked plane, littered with blown up droid parts, and the smell of burned flesh heavy in the air. Balmorra had been in a constant state of warfare for longer than the planet could take. No botanist was lost on Combeferre either, but he wondered how much flora had been collateral in the war against the Empire, to go and stay extinct.  
They reached a camp not long after, hidden underneath a blown up bridge. Jehan offered them food and drink, which they turned down, both eager to start talking.  
Jehan listened patiently, asked questions when in their effort to convince him to help they forgot to tell him the essentials. He laid a sympathetic hand on Enjolras' when he described the conditions at the slave camp Éponine had spoken of, teeth gritted and eyes full of water. This Combeferre remembered from their childhood. Enjolras could be mean and cold, but he'd always had empathy to spare. 

When they finished their story, Jehan was quiet for a while. He looked out across the Balmorran expanse, the grey and yellow grass, the pockets of bare earth and stone where bombs had hit. A radiation counter at Jehan's belt counted idly the poison in the air that would remain for decades.  
"I will help," he said at last and Combeferre hadn't realised he'd held his breath until he let it out, shoulders slumping in relief. With another Jedi, one as powerful as Jehan at that, they might just have a chance. "I will bring the Balmorra Blue to the Coruscant Botanical Gardens, then join you afterwards. Slavery is akin to murder. I will be glad to help bring these people back to life."  
"Thank you, we-"  
Enjolras was interrupted by an incoming holocall. Jehan waved his permission when Enjolras chagrined indicated he needed to take it.  
It was Bahorel.  
"-ras. Ar- - - ceiving me?" Bahorel's holographic model ducked in and out of the transceiver, voice directed partly at them, partly at something in the background. Blaster fire rattled in the background. "--- getting through. Finally. Con- ections unstabl- e, - - -, don't come back to the - fuck - - - to the cantina. We- - under attack. --- perials fou- nd --t about -- - - peat, don't come back, we --- under control."  
The connection broke off. Silence came over the camp, broken up only by the small crunches and crackling as Enjolras squeezed the holocommunicator hard enough to break its outer shell.   
"It appears our timetable has accelerated," Jehan said gently. He got up, offered Enjolras a hand and pulled him to his feet while Combeferre followed. They packed up in a hurry, left behind half of Jehan's things that he deemed replaceable, all while one thought ran laps in Combeferre's mind, over and over again.

He'd done this. He manipulated Grantaire into helping them and the Imperials found out about him. Whatever happened at the cantina, it was his fault. If something happened to Grantaire, it would be because of him. He could hear his masters in his mind, telling him they told him so, that it was his rash decision borne out of uncontrolled emotion that caused the suffering of innocent people. They were quiet in comparison to the clamouring of his emotions, demanding he decide between saving Grantaire or killing every last Imperial in revenge. His choice was clear, he was still a Jedi. But he didn't know what he'd do if there was no one left to save.


	12. Chapter 12

They could hear the fighting from afar. Long before they came in sight of the Side Deck Cantina they saw the scope of destruction the Imperials wrought. People fled the scene, fires had broken out, emergency services, such as there were, coalesced to help the people who could afford their services.   
Combeferre and Enjolras pushed through a throng of gawkers until Combeferre, fed up, angry and full of fear opened himself up to the din of the Force on Nar Shaddaa and used its power to make way. For the first time since the overwhelming first day he felt everything the planet had to offer, all of its power and grief, greed and hope and misery and manic joy and it nearly threw him off balance. He felt Jehan's Force power from both behind and in front of him, a testament to how disorienting it still was. 

They broke into a run, crossing the distance into the Side Deck cantina, jumping over the sign that had fallen off its hinges, smoldering from blaster fire, and into the small entry way. Combeferre took his lightsaber in shaking hands, the first time he'd ever use it outside of training, barely remembering how to let the Force flow into his weapon to give it its shape and fire. They expected corpses. They didn't expect so many Imperial ones. They pushed forward, through the main room in the bar, where more Imperials lay, dead or dying and something else, something that made even Jehan murmur in low concern. Lightsaber burns, on the people and the walls, splitting furniture. If a Sith had been here. The thought didn't bear thinking.

Combeferre gripped his lightsaber tighter, ran ahead of Enjolras - brave, reckless and forceblind Enjolras who would be torn to shreds by a Sith - and after the signs of life he desperately hoped he truly felt through the Force. A VIP room off the main bar was his goal. Its doors had been sealed shut, something the Imperials in front of it sought to remedy. They went at the door with lasers, and noticed Combeferre too late.  
The Force pooled around them at his direction and Combeferre threw it and them to the side, hoping to scatter them but only managing to stop their efforts with the door. The stumbled, fell over each other and Combeferre doubled down, swung his lightsaber down towards a soldier. He aimed for a swift strike but his lightsaber wouldn't obey him. It was sluggish, too heavy, requiring more focus than it used to. Because Combeferre was doubting himself. He was a Jedi. He wasn't supposed to kill anyone. His lightsaber seemed to develop a mind of its own, refused to deal the killing blow to a forceblind soldier who happened to have been born on the wrong end of the galaxy. The soldier had no such doubts. He had his blaster before Combeferre could form another thought, aimed it at his head, he incapable of blocking this shot. Blaster fire whizzed past his side from behind him, hit the soldier in the chest. He slumped back and Combeferre turned around to find Enjolras, scarlet red in the armour Bahorel had given him, blaster aimed at the remaining soldiers.   
Jehan behind him radiated certainty.  
"Please retreat," he said to the soldiers. "We do not want to kill you."  
It shouldn't have worked. The Force made it. The soldiers dropped their weapons and got up, stumbling away in defeat. Enjolras nodded towards Combeferre and made to say something. His words died in his throat as the door to the VIP room opened. Combeferre frowned, and turned. 

His mind went blank, empty of fear and peace alike, nothing but a hollow void that wouldn't accept what he saw. The world turned upside down like the furniture that had been piled into a makeshift barricade, then back up again as the truth finally filtered in through the disbelief.  
There was Bahorel, pressing a hand into a deep wound on his stomach, propped against an upturned sofa. And Grantaire, standing in the door prepared to fight, held up by little more than sheer force of will, blood trickling from his temple. Wielding a green lightsaber.  
In the low light of the bar the green light painted everything around it, Grantaire's hand, the floor at his feet, up to his eyes, which wouldn't meet Combeferre's.  
"I see," Jehan said simply as he came through the door. And although Combeferre could feel Enjolras behind him, standing so close their arms touched, he didn't hear a single word out of his old friend's mouth. Questions formed like bubbles in his mind only to pop and vanish as too many bumped against each other, all the hows and whys and why nots forming a mass of confusion and loss. Combeferre stood and stared silently at the man he had thought was just a bartender. With a past, certainly, but nothing like this. He'd thought when Grantaire avoided speaking about himself or where he came from, that he'd been a soldier or a mercenary. That he'd seen too many bad things and retired to the smuggler's moon to vanish from the Galactic world stage. Not this. Not Grantaire, strong in the Force, face twisted into desperate fury but his hand relaxed around the lightsaber like a man who'd been taught to use it.   
It was Bahorel who broke the awkward stand-off, emerging fully from the barricade, stepping with purposeful carelessness on and over a dead Imperial.  
"Not that your faces aren't hilarious, but we should get out of here. We held off three days and there's bound to be more coming. Also I may need some kolto."  
That broke the spell. Enjolras stepped forward, almost walked straight into Grantaire's blade if he hadn't pulled it back and deactivated it just in time.  
"You're a Jedi!" Enjolras said, managing to sound both accusatory and elated.  
"Don't ... " Grantaire stopped, shook his head. "Please, at least let's get out of here first."

They left, vanishing in the crowds with a little help from Jehan's mindtricks, shaking off any eventual pursuers. Grantaire knew dozens of places to lie low, but he refused to take them to most of them, as he wouldn't risk the lives of innocent allies for their safety. Two cabs, one ancient underground magnet train, and a brisk fifteen minute walk later they ended up at the rear entrance of the Sellag-Golgo Medical University dormitories for oxygen breathers. It was a testament to either Joly's steadfast loyalty to his friends or his sheer tiredness that didn't make him question the sudden presence of five men, one of whom handed him a blue flower and asked him to put it near a windowsill.   
Joly's dorm room was small for one person, nevermind the additional five that crammed themselves into his living space, crowding on beds and in chairs, leaning against walls and murmuring sweet nothings to the plant by the sole window, which didn't let in any natural light, but seemed to satisfy Jehan nonetheless. All of them, even Bahorel and Jehan, looked to Grantaire, but it was Joly who broke the silence first.  
"So your secret's out, huh?"  
Grantaire groaned, curling his hands into his hair, pulling at the strands in distress. Combeferre reached out without thinking, gently touching Grantaire's arm, who flinched and moved backwards against the wall, staring at Combeferre as if he was a ghost.

"I ... ," he started, voice rough with emotion and tense unhappiness. Then he deflated and started speaking: "I can use the Force. I'm not a - I mix drinks on Nar Shaddaa, I haven't done anything since- … forget it, okay? I'm nothing anymore."  
"How can we forget?" Enjolras pushed away from Joly's desk and crossed the small distance between them. Grantaire shrank even further into himself.   
"You're a Jedi, I don't care what you say. I saw you using that lightsaber, you were standing right there and a whole battalion of Imperials dead -"  
"-It might have been less than a battalion-" Jehan suggested gently but was summarily ignored. Enjolras paced up and down, hands flying around him as his eyes lit up at the possibilities.  
"-and you were the one who killed them. You said you couldn't help, but you can! You can come with us to Ziost and-"  
"No."  
"-free the slaves, you could take on Tholomyés, all the Sith in that valley, you could fight them all-"  
"I can't ... "  
"-there's nothing that can stop us now that we have three Jedi on our side. You, and Ferre and Jehan, you're practically an army, nothing can stand in our way-"  
"STOP!"  
Enjolras fell silent, frustrated and not understanding what was happening. Grantaire, legs drawn against his body, arms hiding his face, shook his head. Shook it again, driving away some invisible terror.  
"Don't ask that of me … anything, but don't … I can't, I can't."  
"Hush." It was Jehan leaving the flower behind to kneel before Grantaire, reaching out but not touching, hands hovering over Grantaire's knees.  
"It's alright, R. No one's making you do anything. There's no fighting here, see? Just us, in your friend Joly's room."  
Hesitantly, slowly and without raising his head Grantaire reached out, squeezing Jehan's hand in his. He was shaking so badly Combeferre could feel it through the mattress, desperately wishing he knew if he could reach out like Jehan had but not wanting to crowd Grantaire.  
"Those Imperials ... " he said, voice brittle.  
"They did not suffer," Jehan said, soft and slow and brushing his thumb carefully over the back of Grantaire's hand. "Bahorel is alive because you were there. You are alive. That's a good thing, isn't it?"

It took a while, longer than Grantaire had needed to admit to using the Force, longer than it had taken him to ask after the Imperials, but eventually he gave a quick, jerky nod. Jehan continued sitting with him, gently guiding him into controlling his breathing and coaxing him out of his defensive shell bit by bit until Grantaire, exhausted and embarrassed sat up, squeezing Jehan's hand one last time before letting go.  
"Thank you," he said so softly Combeferre doubted anyone but him and Jehan had heard. Jehan nodded, stood up and faced Enjolras.  
"I will come with you to Ziost," he said. "Leave Grantaire alone, please."  
Enjolras nodded mutely, eyes going between Jehan and Grantaire.   
"I'll come, too," Bahorel said, pressing a kolto patch into his side. "I'm not too bad with a blaster, and you'll need everyone you can get."  
Joly affirmed his decision to accompany them also, saying he'd rather treat malnourished slaves for free than make money at a private ward for Hutts.   
Which left them with the problem of procuring enough ships.  
"I found someone," Grantaire said, shrinking as he was once again the center of attention.  
"You did?" Combeferre said, urging him as gently as he could. Grantaire nodded, took a deep breath, then looked at Enjolras, the first time he had struck up eye contact with anyone since the reveal.  
"Woman named Musichetta. Former Republic pilot, now a freelancer. She's on the fence, but I convinced her to at least hear you out. If you can persuade her ... "  
"I can." Enjolras said resolutely.

Grantaire called Musichetta and they went out to meet her at a cantina not far from them. Between the time it took to make the call and arriving at the meeting place Grantaire had returned to being his old self again. Currently he was mourning his top shelf liquor.  
"A genuine Taris red, smashed to pieces. There are only four bottles of that year in the entire galaxy. And the export restrictions for Vjun ceremonial spice water are insane. With the repair job on the cantina, I'll never be able to afford the smuggling fees."  
He sighed dramatically, but neither Enjolras nor Combeferre encouraged him. Joly had stayed behind in his dorm room with Jehan, to find a better spot for the plant, which would need to wait before getting to Coruscant, while Bahorel had volunteered to find Éponine and tell her about what had happened.   
Combeferre didn't need the Force to tell Enjolras was brimming with curiosity, but Grantaire's strong reaction earlier had done its part to keep him quiet. Towards Grantaire, anyway.  
"Your lightsaber is green too, right? How do you choose?" Enjolras asked as he fell back a little, following Grantaire to the meeting spot. "When you were gone I always wondered, but then we met and everything happened and I never got around to asking."  
"Yes, but paler than Grantaire's. I don't use it much." Today had been the first time he had used it in a real combat situation. His hands were still shaking. "And you don't choose. Not really. The crystals resonate in the force, you choose the one that responds to you the strongest. Green crystals normally respond to scholars more than warriors, but there are exceptions."  
Enjolras threw a glance at Grantaire but he at least pretended not to hear them.  
"You think R used to be a soldier?"  
R, Combeferre noticed. Enjolras had fallen into using the nickname so easily. He chose his next words carefully.  
"When I studied on Tython, during the war, we received a lot of our frontline soldiers. They'd been ... burned out by the fighting, by what they were forced to do. The way they acted ... he reminded me of them."  
And Grantaire's lightsaber had been almost as pale a green as his own, either from poor attunement or long disuse.   
Enjolras made a thoughtful sound.  
"You know, I always wondered about your lightsaber. I tried to imagine what colour it was, or if you had one of those double-bladed ones, like when we were playing as children. For some reason I always imagined you with a blue one."  
"Blue is for soldiers. You …", Combeferre cleared his throat, tried again. The gap between them was still there and he was still terrified of not being able to breach it, but Enjolras had extended a hand he needed to grasp. "You wondered about that? While I was gone?"

They entered the café, found their places and ordered their drinks as Enjolras answered. Grantaire, tactfully, pretended to be completely deaf.  
"I thought of you every day," he admitted. "I wondered where you were, what you were doing. Years passed and I wondered if you were a full Jedi knight yet. With the war, I thought … I thought maybe you had died. Then the Jedi temple at Coruscant fell and there were so many dead. They said the Sith cut down even the youngest padawans, and I thought you had to be among them, that I lost you forever."  
Because if he had died, the Jedi Order would not have told his kin. They would have told nobody except people in the Order. No attachments. For the first time Combeferre realised that leaving to join the Order meant dying to the rest of the world. Reborn as someone without passion, love, or ties to the galaxy he was meant to protect. All the Sith he studied, high on their thrones and seeing themselves above the rest, had more of a connection to the people of the galaxy than any Jedi. He thought of Jehan, cradling a blue flower in his hands loving it like no Jedi would, and Grantaire who surrounded himself with people everywhere he went and thought there might be many reasons why someone would leave the Order.  
"I was on Ilum," he said, omitting all the things he should have said instead. "Studying Sith bloodlines. I was never in any battles."  
He was so focused on Enjolras, the need to tell him everything, every little minute of his life with the Order, every doubt he'd begun having, every insecurity about Enjolras looking at Grantaire instead of him and believing his old friend incapable of emotion, that he didn't notice the woman approaching.

"Third wheeling much, huh, R?"  
Combeferre looked up to see the tallest Togruta he'd ever seen. She loomed over them, yellow skin and red crown, her lekku long enough to reach past her hips, her shoulders wide enough to make them appear thin. The muscles of her bare arms bulged as she pulled Grantaire to his feet and into a hug that had to be crushing bones. True enough Grantaire coughed, patting the woman on the arm to regain his freedom and ability to breathe.  
"Chetta," he said, settling back down next to Enjolras. "Hey, you know how it is."  
Musichetta laughed, ordering a drink with the authority of a woman who was never overlooked.  
"I don't. When I'm in the mix, everyone else is thirdwheeling. Now," she turned the chair around, sat on it backwards, resting her arms on the backrest and regarding Enjolras with an appraising glance. "You must be that prince Grantaire mentioned. Make your pitch."  
"I'm not a prince," he protested.  
"Don't care. Clock's ticking pretty boy."  
Despite her matter of fact attitude, Combeferre sensed no hostility from Musichetta. Rather, she seemed to enjoy putting Enjolras on the spot a little. Enjolras, trained in diplomacy and used to the antics of the noble houses, caught himself quickly.  
"This isn't about me," he said. "It's not about you, either. If you agree to help us, you will risk repercussions, from both the Republic and the Empire. There's a non-zero chance we'll all die."  
Grantaire raised his eyebrows, hiding the expression behind his cup. Combeferre now regretted not ordering anything.   
"But," Enjolras continued before Musichetta could comment. "There are a hundred people stuck on a frozen rock in the middle of Imperial space, forced to dig up mummified Sith corpses all day until the frostbite takes their legs and their masters take the rest of them. And they believe the Republic hasn't abandoned them. They are waiting for rescue."  
He had her. It was written in her face, plain as day, the empathy, the grim resolve, the frustration with the Treaty of Coruscant that benched soldiers like her. She put up a fight, nonetheless.  
"So you expect us to, what? Break an entire Imperial blockade, invade literally at their doorstep and fight off an army by ourselves?"  
Us, Grantaire mouthed behind Enjolras' back at Combeferre. Combeferre nodded. He had heard it too.  
"The Sith Lord we're taking on has a private airport that bypasses Imperial customs. He uses it to smuggle in Sith artifacts and we know one of the smugglers who supplies him. If we're lucky, he'll be too embarrassed by the defeat to tell anyone and the Empire will never know we were there."  
"A Sith Lord, huh? Well, if it's nothing else ... "  
She threw Grantaire a glance, who shrugged helplessly. Combeferre took over.  
"You won't have to worry about the Sith. We'll have two Force users on our team. We will attempt to rescue the slaves without getting his attention, but Jehan and I can keep him off your back if need be."  
Musichetta nodded, more to herself. Her beer arrived and she drank while she thought, regarding the three of them over the brim of her glass.  
"I've seen you lot fight," she said to Combeferre. "Ord Radama, during the war. One bloke with a lightsaber can make all the difference. Two, we might just have a chance. Alright," she set her beer down with a resounding clink. "I'm in. My ship has space for sixty people, with an additional fifteen if we empty the shuttle bay and make a direct landing. I'll talk to some old friends, too. There's got to be someone else crazy enough to fly a ship into Ziost with not even half a dozen people."

Just as easy, Musichetta was on their side. They hashed out their plan with her over the next hour. She would wait in high orbit until Éponine had taken out the AA guns from the ground, then land on the ruin tops, load in the people that Feuilly, Bahorel, and Enjolras would organise, then take off as soon as possible. Jehan and Combeferre would fight or distract the guards by the lifts, to make it seem like the slaves were trying to travel up to the landing pads. With any luck they would not take the threat seriously enough to risk their master's wrath by alerting him. Musichetta's ship had a medical bay, so Joly would ride with her and they'd take the people in need of the most medical attention. The whole operation should take less than one galactic standard hour.  
"If I could show them proof we have Jedi support, rallying ships for the rest of these folks would be a lot easier," Musichetta said to Combeferre as they wrapped up the final details.  
"I'll come with you," he said. "But I'm no diplomat. I don't know how much help I'll be ... "  
"Just stand there and look pretty, that's all I'm asking."

Combeferre chose not to answer that, instead turning to Enjolras. He hadn't missed the looks he'd been shooting Grantaire all day and pulled him aside before he left.  
"Leave him be, alright?" he asked. "Whatever happened that makes him want to forget the past, it won't do any good to try and dig it up."  
"Yes, yes, fine," Enjolras said, waving him off. Combeferre took that promise with a grain of salt and hoped Grantaire wouldn't take it too badly. It was him who had brought Éponine, Musichetta, and Jehan on board and there was no doubt in Combeferre's mind that they would jump ship the second Grantaire gave any indication.   
Besides, he felt for Grantaire. The war hadn't ended that long ago.   
Jedi who returned to Tython from the war battled the consequences of their actions still, and they had the entire Order and a whole planet strong in the light side of the force to aid them. 

Grantaire stood too close not to have heard the exchange and he gave Combeferre a shrug and a smile he thought looked grateful. Combeferre could understand Enjolras' frustration. He himself had a million questions. One of them was what had made Grantaire choose life on Nar Shaddaa over the Jedi Order. If his doubts had been similar to the ones plaguing Combeferre.  
While he still wondered if he should hug Enjolras goodbye, it didn't seem appropriate and yet it was what they had always done as children, Enjolras solved the problem for him by patting him on the arm and wandering off.   
So much for that.


	13. Chapter 13

The silence lasted all but three minutes. They left the café without Combeferre and reached the landing pad when Grantaire groaned and threw his hands up in defeat.  
"Fine, ask your questions before you implode."  
Enjolras didn't hesitate.  
"Have you ever fought a Sith? Can you give us advice? What was it like in the Order? Did you build your lightsaber yourself? Were you a full knight?"  
Grantaire actually snorted. The tension of the day bled from him, leaving behind the same bartender he'd been before they left for Balmorra. It was hard to imagine him in Jedi robes, meditating on some rock.  
"Take a breath and pick one."  
"Why are you here?"  
Grantaire looked at him, an eyebrow raised, like he wasn't sure if he should be amused or insulted by the question.   
"I can leave ... " he offered.  
"That's not what I meant," Enjolras said, all but pushing Grantaire into the cab and following after. "I mean, why aren't you on Tython, or Ilum, or fighting Sith? Why a cantina on Nar Shaddaa?"

Enjolras expected discomfort from Grantaire. He didn't understand it - if he were a Jedi it would be all he'd ever talk about, but he expected it. It was the only reason why he was content to wait, watch Grantaire look out of the window, following the lanes of cars criss-crossing through the megaskyscrapers and support structures that littered the entire surface. Nar Shaddaa's perpetual orange glow cast a warm light on Grantaire's face, softening his features. He looked tired, Enjolras noticed, like he hadn't been sleeping well in a long time. Then again, Jedi warriors had plenty to give their nightmares fuel.  
"Was it that terrible?" he asked softly.   
"Yes." Grantaire didn't hesitate with that answer, but he didn't look at Enjolras either. He seemed lost, gone into some part of his memory Enjolras desperately wished he could follow.  
"You have no idea what it's like, being what I am," Grantaire continued, volunteering information about himself for the first time. "I told myself it was just the way things were, that it was my privilege to do the things I did. But I hurt people, killed them, for no better reason than that I decided they were my enemy. I was proud until I wasn't."  
It was raw, vulnerable, and Enjolras had no idea what had made Grantaire decide to go ahead and trust him with that admission. It needed some reciprocation, some returned gift that gave Grantaire as much as he had given Enjolras. 

Carefully, reaching out both physically and emotionally he moved closer to Grantaire until they were touching shoulder to knee, and said: "When the Jedi masters came for Combeferre, I hated him for it."   
Grantaire looked up, quiet but listening openly.   
"I was so sure it would be me, I felt betrayed, like something had been stolen from me. I would have given anything to be a Jedi. And Combeferre, he doesn't even seem to like it all that much. Even now, everytime I look at him … he's my friend, I loved him more than anything, I still do, nothing's ever changed that, but I also resent him a little. I still wish it could have been me."  
It was the best he could do. He had never hurt anyone like Grantaire said he had, had never been a soldier on the frontlines, never had to reconcile the Jedi code with the realities of war. And even that stung, even with Grantaire as broken and weary as any man could be, showing him exactly what would have happened if those Jedi masters had come for him all those years ago, he was still jealous.  
Grantaire turned a little, just enough for a little eye contact and a sad smile.  
"Being a Jedi isn't all it's cracked up to be," he said. "You spend your whole life meditating to some old coot reciting even older philosophies at you. And then you die way too young at the hands of a bloodthirsty insane Sith before you ever had your first kiss."  
There was the pain of recollection in Grantaire's eyes, and Enjolras wondered who it had been. A friend with whom Grantaire had grown up, training together in the Order. Or even a Padawan, relying on him to protect him from the only true evil in the galaxy. Enjolras, displaying a sense of tact he felt would have made Combeferre proud, did not ask.   
Instead he curled his fingers around Grantaire's chin and gently pulled him towards him. Grantaire's eyes went wide, his lips parted to say something, but Enjolras was faster and bridged the gap between them. 

The cab flew on through the traffic, the droid driver unperturbed by what was happening in his backseat. The world went on turning, the galaxy didn't stop to hold its breath. Enjolras felt it should have. He drew away, just enough to see if Grantaire was blushing as deeply as he was, close enough to feel his warmth, his soft clothes, the hint of stubble underneath Enjolras' fingers as he traced the line of Grantaire's jaw.   
"I didn't deserve that," Grantaire whispered, sad and awestruck. He didn't pull away, but he didn't come closer, either.  
"I did," Enjolras said, and kissed him again.


	14. Chapter 14

The guards rarely came down to the tombs, to the ransacked halls of long dead Sith, out of superstition or laziness or both. As long as the slaves fulfilled their quotas they didn't care if one snuck away for a while to the tomb where he'd once hidden a boy they believed to be dead.  
"I wish you were here with us," Feuilly said, blinking away the creeping tiredness. He'd crept out in the middle of the night, almost got caught when he stumbled over a dislodged rock he didn't see in the water and fell face first into it. He had to dive into the water, push himself into the freezing mud, the water barely deep enough to cover him, and listen through the rushing of the stream and his own blood in his ears for the guards to pass. But he needed some time away from the others, wished selfishly he could talk to Gavroche, who didn't understand most of what was going on, but had always managed to cheer Feuilly up with his jokes. Right up until he'd pushed him down the ruins and broke his spine. It had taken him bringing the hope of rescue into the tomb for Gavroche to smile at him again, but he knew that had been relief, not forgiveness. He didn't know if he could ever earn it, didn't even know if he'd have the chance to ask it. He had hoped for the Republic to send their armies, not just a handful of agents. He couldn't say any of that to Bossuet or the others, knew he was being ungrateful and pessimistic and couldn't pass these feelings on to the others. They needed to believe they could be free or else none of them would risk escaping and all of this would have been for nothing. And there was more, more than loneliness that had driven him to the tomb in the dead of night.

The tomb was as cold as the outside, but at least there was no draft and Feuilly, shivering and teeth chattering, pushed the tomb lid off with some of his last strength. He wriggled a rock loose from inside, reached into the hole it revealed and pulled out the most dangerous thing a slave could have here.  
His fingers barely managed to dial the comm ID, felt like they were frozen solid. Water dripped from the tips of his hair, stinging him with freezing little bites at the back of his neck, obscuring his view as it fell into his face in matted clumps.  
The tomb was silent, the night dark, but Feuilly shivered with more than the cold. Dread had settled on his spine to stay ever since the morning's compliment of guards showed up. Finally the call went through.  
"Feuilly? Has something happened-"  
"More guards," Feuilly said, quickly. Any second someone might notice his absence. If they did not find him, they would punish the others. "Tripled, I think. They flew in more slaves, seventy more. They got suspicious, I don't know what tipped them off, but they are snooping around. They turned our barracks upside down-"  
"Should have turned this place upside down, too."  
Feuilly froze. He hadn't heard anyone. They must have been coming down while he waited for the call to come through, he should have heard.

He had no chance to hide the communicator. Something slammed into him from behind, pushed him against the grave and the air out of his lungs. The communicator fell, swallowed by water.  
"You dropped your little treasure."  
Tholomyés. Cold dread, raw and icier than the melt water of Ziost's tombs, pricked his spine. A cloud, poisoned and heavy, settled on his mind, pushed everything out except fear. That was how he had not heard them. He'd been too busy fearing he'd be caught, emotion put there by the Sith Lord himself.  
"Get it."  
The guard who'd pushed Feuilly against the tomb now shoved him into the water. He hit it hands and knees first, deep enough to sting with cold, not deep enough to soften the impact of stone on his knees. He groaned, a little punched out sound, hands digging around in the muddy water, searching for the communicator. He still did not see Tholomyés, only the armoured feet of the guards standing around him and the very tips of their rifles hovering at the edge of his vision.   
"I don't have all night, slave. Find it."  
Pain lanced through Feuilly. Terrible, horrible pain. His muscles clamped up, seized and squeezed his bones until it felt they might break, shattering under his own body like fingers under a hammer. Then the pain let up, nothing but a shadow of it remaining, a reminder of the pain, a promise that next time it would be worse. Feuilly searched, blindly now as tears obscured his vision, but he didn't dare pause long enough to wipe them away. Finally his fingers curled around something smooth and hard and he pulled up the communicator.  
A guard snatched it away and stepped on Feuilly's back, pushing down. 

He went under the water, didn't have time to take a breath before he was submerged, cheek scraping against the floor, only the top of his head exposed to the stagnant air above. Voices sounded over the rushing of blood in his ears, a conversation, demands. His lungs fought for air, his mind fighting a losing battle against the urge to breathe in and breathe water. He struggled without conscious thought, thrashed in the shallow waters, trying to find purchase, struggling to get up from underneath the guard's boot. His body forced him to breathe, icy water filled his lungs, he tried to cough and only swallowed more water, black spots dancing in front of his eyes, pain and panic mingling-

A hand grabbed him and yanked him up, he gulped for air, coughed and threw up water, blind and deaf until someone struck him across the cheek.  
It was the guard, holding him up and Tholomyés right in front of him, his presence bearing down on him heavier than the water. He held the communicator in his gloved hand. With a single motion he shattered it between his hands. The frescoes of ancient monsters laughed in the flickering light.   
"The Republic won't save you, boy. You're on a Sith homeworld. In fact, if they do show up, I will slaughter them and hang their entrails across my fort. Just for that, I will let you live. So you can watch your little dreams of freedom crumble."   
Feuilly squeezed his eyes shut, trembling worse than before, bile rising in his throat.   
"You creatures never learn. You're like animals, all you understand is pain."  
Again Tholomyés struck him, a ring catching on his cheek, slicing a burning wound into his cheek. He swallowed his pained gasp, knew it would only spurn Tholomyés to greater cruelties.  
"Guards. Get that trash out of there." For one fleeting terrible second Tholomyés looked Feuilly right in the eyes. "Kill another slave. Make this one watch."  
"No ... "  
Voice hoarse, throat still logged with water, Feuilly's voice barely rose above a whisper, going unheard by the guards who lifted him out of the water, forced him into the main hall, up and out through the ruins, back to the camps. 

Feuilly struggled, pleaded with the guards not to hurt anyone else, but his begging fell on deaf ears. He winced with every step they forced him to take, helpless and furious but not even strong enough to struggle against his bonds. If he had just a sliver of Force power, he would have brought this place crumbling down, it and every guard and Sith and himself with it. People told tales of the Force manifesting itself in times of great stress, but as much as he begged for it to come to him, as much as he needed the power, not for himself, but to preserve the life of another, he remained a helpless nothing, forced to listen to the soldiers dragging the slaves out of their huts one by one.


	15. Chapter 15

"Feuilly's in trouble."  
Combeferre looked up to find Enjolras and Grantaire entering. None of the words registered. Grantaire looked slightly dazed, his hair tousled more than normal. Both their lips were deep red. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. Heartbreak pierced through Combeferre, sharp and brief, a reminder that he wasn't supposed to have these feelings in the first place, that he was a Jedi and he was not supposed to have crushes and his feelings weren't supposed to distract him. He tore himself free, covered his heartbreak in serenity like he'd been taught and processed what Enjolras had said.

"Then we have no more time," he said, while Joly, pouring over his textbooks, exchanged a furtive look with Jehan and Musichetta.   
"Do we have enough ships?"  
"Nowhere close. Feuilly said they brought in more slaves," Enjolras said grimly, looking at Musichetta who shook her head.  
She retrieved her datapad and pulled up a list of contacts.  
"I have a couple in the wings, but they need more than my word."  
In the cramped dorm room it was impossible to pace, but Enjolras attempted it nonetheless, stopping frustrated after every half-step that forced him to stop or change traction. Combeferre threw a look to Grantaire who had all but melted into the background, eyes fixed on Enjolras, looking just as perturbed as the rest of them.  
"We have to go now," Enjolras said decisively. "Éponine has to fly a small team in. We won't be getting anyone out without ships but we can keep the heat off Feuilly's people, organise, maybe find somewhere to escape and hide until the ships come."  
As far as plans went, this wasn't great. The others shared looks Enjolras didn't seem to notice, Musichetta shook her head slightly.  
Grantaire was the one who spoke up.  
"You do realise that will leave us stranded on an Imperial heartworld, without any meaningful resources, hunted by a Sith Lord and his entire army, saddled with people who may not even be able to walk, much less run or fight, right?"  
Enjolras opened his mouth, an argument on his lips already, a dozen reasons why his plan was good or necessary or inevitable. He stood in their midst, as awe inducing as a force apparition, but bowed by the lives of dozens on his shoulders. Combeferre wished, desperately feeling like he hadn't in over a decade, to be able to stand by Enjolras' side now, support him like the friend he once was. He wished he could openly long for him like Grantaire did, he wished he could long for Grantaire, wished he wasn't jealous of them both, wished he'd never been taken away to become a Jedi because his teachings and his feelings warred inside him and made it utterly impossible to argue Grantaire's point. He didn't have to. It was Joly, speaking softly: "Us, Grantaire?"

For a second it looked like Grantaire might bolt. A shiver of fear crossed his face, followed by determination, followed by resignation. He threw his hands up, ducked his head, said: "Us. It will leave us stranded. This mess already cost me my bar, might as well see it through."

Not an hour later Éponine found herself beleaguered by five men vying for a spot on her ship. That hadn't happened in a while.  
"The space's not the problem," she said, crossing her arms and leaning against the hull of her ship. "I'm not supposed to make another run to Ziost, though. Not for another six months."  
"Six months?"  
Enjolras shook his head, looked up to the murky cloudy bits of sky Nar Shaddaa's skyline let through. This was rapidly turning into a mess. They should have planned better, moved more quickly.  
"We have to get there now. Tholomyés might already have discovered Feuilly, he could be hurt or worse-"

"Ponine," Grantaire interjected, stepping forward and reaching out for her hands. She let him take them into his, her face softened into something almost pitying. "You know I said I'd never set foot on an Imperial world again. This is important."  
She squeezed his hands, sharing a moment Enjolras didn't understand.   
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked.  
Grantaire threw a look over his shoulder, met Enjolras' eyes. Enjolras tried to smile, to not let on how lost he felt, how little of a leader he was turning out to be. Grantaire smiled back and turned around.  
"No. But he is."  
Something passed between them, and Éponine stepped back.

"I need either spice or artifacts to convince Tholomyés' thugs to let me through. If you can get me either, I'll take you to Ziost, you suicidal maniacs."  
They stepped back, Enjolras looking to Jehan.  
"I don't have anything of value on me," Jehan said regretfully.  
"And Combeferre can hardly waltz into the next Jedi stronghold and just take things," Enjolras said. But were before he'd been desperate, frantic, now he felt calmer. It had become a question of resources, and resources he could procure.   
Jedi artifacts would take too long to get, Tholomyés was already being supplied with Sith artifacts and didn't expect another shipment so soon. Other artifacts likely held little appeal for him. That left bribing his soldiers with spice. Which was dominated by Hutt cartels.  
"Cobbaggi the Hutt." he said. "I have a friend who can make a deal."  
"Huh, me too," Grantaire said. "Small world."  
"That's good," Enjolras said, finding his footing and breaking into a mental run. "Call your contact as well, just to make sure."   
He dialed the number, watched Grantaire do the same.   
"Oh, hey Enj. R."  
Two sets of holographic Courfeyracs popped up on their respective holocoms. They stared at each other.  
Simultaneously they pointed at each other.

"How the fuck do you know Courf?"   
"You know Courfeyrac?"  
"He's my best friend, how do you know him?"  
Grantaire opened his mouth, then deflated.  
"Long story," he said lamely. Courfeyrac grinned through the holocom.  
"I smell juicy gossip. How did you two meet, huh? Dating app? Set up by friends? No, can't be, I'd have known about that. Wow, now I'm wondering why I never thought about setting you two up. You're exactly each other's types, how did I never make that connection?"  
"Courf," Enjolras interrupted, lest his entire private life was to be dissected. "I need a couple kilos of spice."  
That shut him up.   
Grantaire snorted, but elaborated: "Soon, too. Less than a day if I read the expression on Enj's face right. We're in Cobbaggi's territory if that helps."  
"It helps," Courfeyrac said, serious when he needed to be. "I can get that to you. I'm going to assume it's not for personal use, so give me landing pad coordinates and I'll get it to the pilot of your choice. I recommend not selling it on Nar Shaddaa, the Hutts don't like that kind of thing at all. Also, can I say, it's super cute that you're already at the pet name stage? How long have you been together anyway-"  
"Great, Courf, thanks. Bye." Enjolras hung up for both of them, scrambling to get their holocoms out of the way. How Courfeyrac had known that there was something between him and Grantaire - even if he wouldn't go so far as to say they were together - was beyond him. But his old friend seemed to perceive romantic tension the same way Jedi perceived the Force. It came naturally.

He faced the rest of his group. Combeferre would stay behind with Musichetta, trying to get together enough ships and pilots.   
On his task the entire operation hung. Without the pilots, both this group and the people they meant to save would die miserably in the middle of Imperial space. If anyone could come through, it was Combeferre, pride of the Jedi order. 

But without him he was left with a medical student, a bouncer, the secret force using owner of a bar, and another Jedi who seemed to be perpetually lost in daydreams, none of which he knew very well. He didn't know how to appeal to them, what to say to inspire them. He chose honesty.  
"There are almost two hundred people trapped in Imperial space, forced to work for a Sith Lord who will torture and kill them if they dare to resist. And you don't owe them anything."  
The group exchanged looks.  
"Well, if you put it like that," Grantaire said with a sardonic grin.  
"It's true," Enjolras pressed on, tried to draw each and every one of these people in. "You don't have a duty to rescue these people, nothing ties you to them. If you do this, there will be no reward. Some of you may be punished. Some of you might not make it back."  
Even as he said it, the truth of it hit him. 

When Combeferre called him and asked for his help, it had been a game. A chance to prove that he wasn't like the rest of his family, burying their heads in the sand. But now he saw his people, the soldiers of his little army, and saw them die on a frozen planet because he put them there, because he told them it was the right thing to do. And as much as the thought terrified him, as much as he regretted the pain he was about to inflict on them, he knew if he didn't do everything he could, up to and including sending these good, these kind, these generous people to their deaths, then Feuilly and his people were doomed.  
"But in this whole galaxy, no one else will help. The Republic chose stability over justice."  
Musichetta, standing to the side, frowned grimly.  
"The Jedi preach peace over altruism."  
Jehan smoothed down his robes, worn from being out in the world like few Jedi after the war. Enjolras looked to Grantaire, but couldn't gauge what he was thinking.  
"No one who is capable is willing. No one who is willing is capable. Except you. A hundred trillion people in this galaxy, and you are the only ones who will fight for the sake of not yourself, or some distant ideal, but for the living, breathing people who are suffering on Ziost right now.  
I cannot force you to go," he said, knowing full well that with every word he uttered he bound them to their fate. "But I can ask. And I ask that you stand with me, that you will step up and be the only hope Feuilly and his people have."

One by one he watched their faces harden in resolve. None of them, with the possible exception of Grantaire, were soldiers. In an open fight, they'd be slaughtered. But they stepped forward, Bahorel clapped Enjolras on the shoulder.  
"You know we're with you. Let's finish this."  
One by one they boarded Éponine's ship, talking amongst each other, hashing out strategies, speculating about what the future would hold. Enjolras went to do the same, then realised Grantaire had not joined them. He still stood two steps away from him, face unreadable, watching his friends go on a journey they might not return from.  
"That was some speech," he said when he noticed Enjolras looking. "You knew exactly what to say to get them to do what you want."  
Enjolras didn't deny it. He kept looking for some sign of what was going on in Grantaire's head. Did he disapprove or was he impressed? Did he resent him for sending his friends into danger, or admire him for doing it to save innocent people?  
"You say you envied Combeferre for being Force sensitive, but I'm glad you're not," Grantaire continued, bridging the distance between them. His words stung but Enjolras endured them. "You would have been the most powerful Jedi there ever was. You don't need it anyway. The Force. I know every trick you just used, and I still fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker."  
Grantaire grinned, something bitter and resigned and Enjolras was sure the fondness he saw underneath all that was wishful thinking.  
"I'm glad you're with me," Enjolras said, when it became clear Grantaire was done. He pulled him in, still a little amazed by how easily Grantaire followed his unspoken requests. Even though he was a good head taller than Enjolras he felt small in his arms, curled into himself as his hands searched for every little bit of affection he could get.   
"I'm glad, too," Grantaire said, and as much as his voice was tinged with sadness and bitter resignation, he seemed to mean it.


	16. Chapter 16

They landed on Ziost with minimal fuss. Each and every one of them, hiding in the cargo hold as Éponine flew towards the landing pad, expected to be shot down. When she opened up the ramp and brought out the spice, they were sure she'd be welcomed by an armed contingent. But Tholomyés was none the wiser. Another complication presented itself in his stead.

"You. Jedi boy," Éponine hissed, waving Jehan to follow her. The others looked to each other but she didn't stop to explain. She didn't need to. Enjolras and the rest could hear snippets of the conversation through the closed doors, with two voices they hadn't heard before.  
A male voice, rough and sneering spoke first.  
"You should be halfway to Gerentz Station, girl, what are you doing here?"   
"I was just-"  
Éponine was interrupted by another voice, this one deep and smooth, drawling an answer as if bored by the entire encounter.  
"Probably running after some pretty boy again. Who's that?"  
"Shut your mouth, Parnasse, or I'll shut it for you."  
Jehan spoke then in his soft voice, making it impossible for Enjolras to hear what he was saying.  
"I do? Oh, yeah, I guess. Thanks. Um."  
The smooth voice again, sounding less bored and more flustered and it petered out into what Enjolras could feel was awkward silence. Next to him Grantaire had to muffle his laughter. He knew Éponine, he probably knew the two voices, as well. Enjolras didn't dare ask him and be overheard.  
"Hutt's arse, Parnasse, get your act together. This is the first I hear of a business partner, Jedi no less."  
"Just expanding the business, dad, like you told me to. I figured, we're making a pretty dime selling Sith artifacts, there's got to be a market for Jedi trinkets, right? And I've come here, obviously, because ..."  
Éponine faltered. Jehan's voice picked up, and although he still couldn't make out the words Enjolras felt the weight behind them.

In the contemplative silence, Enjolras wondered how Éponine could sound so calm. Did she have nothing to fear from her father, or was she that good a liar? Grantaire still gave no indication of what he knew, and his grin had dropped to return to the pensive state it had been in since they made the approach to Ziost.  
Its dark side presence unnerved him, he had said, reminded him of things he'd rather forget. Not for the first time Enjolras had to bite his tongue to keep himself from squeezing every minute of Grantaire's lifestory out of him. Had he fought on a world like Ziost before? And what was it that seemed to pain him so much, what terrible memory put that look on his face that Enjolras wanted nothing more than to kiss away. Rather than ambush Grantaire with a kiss he reached out gently and squeezed his hand. Grantaire smiled back gratefully.  
"Not a bad idea, actually," the older voice, who Enjolras suspected was Éponine's father, said. "I can spare Parnasse, he'll help. Make sure everything's running … smoothly."  
"I can do that."   
The younger voice's drawl was back, although even not knowing anything about this guy and through several inches of plastisteel, Enjolras could tell he was trying not to sound overeager. Whatever Jehan had said, it'd had one hell of an effect on this guy.  
"Fine. I have to get going now, so get off my ship."  
"Careful, girl, remember who's paying your rent."  
Steps sounded and grew quieter. Éponine cursed her father once he was out of earshot, but it was Jehan who spoke first, still too soft to hear through the door.  
"Yes! I mean, sure. I can show you around, I guess."  
"Spirits," Grantaire muttered under his breath as Jehan and that Parnasse guy left. "He has him wrapped around his little finger, doesn't he?"  
Enjolras was about to agree but in this moment Éponine opened the door to their cargo compartment and watched them spill out, a disapproving curl to her lips.  
"I could hear you rustling around in there the entire time," she scolded, even though Enjolras was sure they hadn't made a sound. "Now get out of here. I need to finalise the spice deal with the guards. Jehan'll distract Montparnasse while I do that, then catch up with you. I'll take over babysitting Parnasse, then take out the AA guns once Musichetta is in orbit, and meet you at the camps, load up as many people as I can and then I'm out of here. No return trips."

Enjolras nodded and didn't miss that Éponine talked as if she didn't count on the ships coming. She'd be surprised then. But then again, she didn't know Combeferre like he did. Even after so many years apart, he still knew that Combeferre could do anything.  
As for them, that was another matter entirely. Without Jehan, they only had one Force user left and that Force user, Enjolras learned as they stepped off the ramp, didn't exactly present himself as a fierce and tireless Jedi warrior.  
"Grantaire?" he asked, laying a hand on Grantaire's shoulder. He'd begun trembling as if from some suppressed emotion and when Enjolras touched him he jerked away.  
"Don't touch me!"  
Enjolras stepped back, eyes wide, hands raised. He'd never heard Grantaire speak like this.   
Grantaire deflated, avoided eye contact as he said: "Sorry. I didn't mean to shout. Just, please, let's get this over with?"  
They moved on. Enjolras up front, following Éponine's directions, followed by Grantaire and Joly, with Bahorel taking up the rear. With four people it was much more difficult to enter the slave camps unnoticed, and they had to stay hidden for almost half an hour, standing up to their shins in freezing sludge, fearing with every passing minute they'd be discovered. 

Finally the guards that stood in their way moved on. Before they could go on, Grantaire held them back.  
"Look, I don't think I should be going in there," he said.  
Enjolras stared, incredulous.  
"What? Why?"  
"It's not a good idea. Someone might … look, I can't go in there. Can't I just wait here?"  
Enjolras shook his head, doubting for the first time the wisdom in bringing Grantaire along. Now he was losing his nerve? This was a far cry from the man who had stood and defended a bar against dozens of Imperial troopers.  
"Of course not. What if you're discovered? Come on, pull yourself together."  
Grantaire sunk into himself, nodded miserably.

They continued, snuck into the hut Éponine had said belonged to Feuilly.   
Feuilly was there. His hair was red, his frame too haggard. That was were the similarities ended.  
He's dead, Enjolras thought.   
But he wasn't. He was ashen grey, one eye swollen shut, his entire face and every bit of exposed skin covered in cuts and bruises. When they entered he flinched, pulled himself back against the thin sheet metal wall, but when he saw they were not Sith, he slumped in relief. Joly was with him in an instant, reaching for the few medical supplies he could bring with him. Feuilly stopped him.  
"Save those for the others," he said.  
"You're in bad shape!" Joly protested, looking to Enjolras for help.  
"I'm not dying."  
Joly pressed his lips together into a thin line, but he didn't argue.   
"Where?" he asked and ducked out of the hovel the second Feuilly had supplied him with directions to his patients.   
"You brought some friends," Feuilly said, his one good eye following Joly out. "The Republic's finest?"  
Enjolras couldn't muster a response, the lie weighing heavily on him. Feuilly didn't wait for one. He pulled himself up, and even with the injuries, even in his weakened state, he still exuded strength.  
"I suppose I should introduce myself formally. I'm Feuilly." 

"-leader of the largest slave rebellion on an Imperial heartworld in the last sixty-five years," Bossuet continued, stepping inside the hut. Feuilly ducked his head but didn't dispute it. "Protector of the helpless, paragon of every slave thriving for freedom, warrior extraordinaire."  
Bahorel slapped Feuilly's shoulder in a jovial gesture.  
"Nice to meet ya. I'm Bahorel. I work as a bouncer."  
Feuilly's head shot up, genuine awe in his face.  
"That's so cool! I bet you have tons of fun stories to tell."  
"You bet I do. There was this one human once, walked into the bar and said-"  
Enjolras was dimly aware that he was not the only one staring as they followed the conversation between these two. Feuilly hung on Bahorel's every word, each looking as if they had just met their greatest hero.  
Bossuet leaned to the side, saying softly so that Enjolras could barely hear: "Do you think they're aware that there's a, uh, slight discrepancy between their list of accomplishments?"  
Enjolras shook his head, but cut short Feuilly's and Bahorel's mutual sparks of admiration.  
"Feuilly, you said there were more slaves in your last communication. How many are there now total?"  
Feuilly grew somber.  
"Two hundred and thirty willing to take the risk, including young children and the infirm. It won't be easy getting them to your ships."  
The three looked at each other. Grantaire frowned, pretended not to notice when Enjolras looked to him for help. Bahorel just looked slightly ill.   
"About that … we-"  
A commotion interrupted them. Shouting broke through the early evening air. Angry voices rose over the terrified shouts of the slaves as guards entered the camp, their heavy boots splashing in the water.   
"Everyone out!"  
In the blink of an eye Feuilly's demeanour changed from one of quiet confidence to one of sheer terror.   
"Don't go," Bahorel said.  
"I have to. They'll come looking and then they'll find you."

They helped Feuilly to his feet as best they could and followed his movements, weak and hunched, peering through the gaps in the metal walls. He lined up with the other slaves, Twi'leks next to humans, children standing alone between adults, no one holding their hands. The guards marched into some hovels, pulled out old and sickly slaves by their lekku, their hair, their hands and feet, forced them into a lineup. Aside from the guards in their clanking armour barking orders, it was eerily quiet. No slave spoke or made a sound.

"One of you," the head guard yelled, the only one not wearing a helmet, his ruddy face pocked with scars. "Broke into our communications relay. You thought we wouldn't find out, did you? You creatures never learn. Grab him."  
Two guards rushed forward and pulled Bossuet out of the lineup. The guards pulled his arms behind his back hard enough that one wrong motion would dislocate a shoulder. He cried out, looked directly at Feuilly.  
"Please, please! Help me, please!"  
The head guard brought his armoured glove down hard on Bossuet's face. His head flew to the side, and he screamed and sobbed, begged for help. Even from this distance and at an awkward angle, Enjolras could see that his shoulder joint had popped out.  
"Did you have an accomplice? If we bring two of you back, each of you will receive only half your punishment. Even something like you can understand that's fair."  
Bossuet looked up, his eyes gliding over Feuilly. But he didn't say anything.  
Neither did Feuilly.


	17. Chapter 17

When the Jedi took Combeferre in eighteen years ago he was already too old to become one of their warriors. In the decades before and during the war, only a handful of their frontline soldiers had joined the Jedi Order as older children or adults. Most had been raised there since they could barely walk, taught its ideals, its demands, its harsh duties. This, the Council reasoned, was the only way to make them able to resist the dark side of the Force. Combeferre, eight years and leaving friendships and loving parents behind, would never reach this ultimate state of enlightenment and detachment necessary to fight in a war while remaining devoted to the light. 

Other children resented this fact, but Combeferre had been glad. He was not militant or aggressive, quietly loathed his combat lessons, and preferred to spend time in the company of long dead Jedi, telling him of the worlds they had visited, the secrets they had uncovered. In other circumstances, they would have trained him to become a diplomat, and used his noble heritage to the benefit of the Jedi Order and the Republic. But not only was Combeferre not cut out for war, he was also too shy and withdrawn to take a public role. The few times the Order had sent him on diplomatic missions with his masters had gone disastrously wrong, with Combeferre either saying the wrong thing or nothing at all, until his masters relented and quietly foisted him on the historians, not even objecting when he began taking an interest in Sith ancestral culture. 

He was neither general nor ambassador, but nonetheless he stood in front of a pilot with more scars than Combeferre had cups of tea in his life, expected to convince him to join a desperate fight for little gain.  
"Did Musichetta tell you why I called you?" he asked, stopping himself from fiddling with the hem of his sleeves.   
"She did."  
"Right."  
He bit his lip, tried to come up with some foolproof plan like Enjolras always seemed to have.   
"So," the smuggler said, a tad impatient. "What's the pitch, boss?"  
"The pitch, right. The pitch is ... "   
Deep breaths, he told himself. He was a Jedi. People relied on him. He could do this.  
"The pitch is this: We need to rescue over a hundred slaves from Ziost. They will die without people like you, they need someone brave who will do what the Republic won't. Musichetta told me you're a good man. Here's your chance to prove it."  
Instead of immediately volunteering, like Combeferre had secretly hoped he might, the smuggler merely raised his eyebrows.  
"Ziost? Like the Imperial world?"  
"Yes, but …"  
"And without Republic sanctions, correct?"  
"They don't see the need-"  
"Yeah, yeah, I got that. No privateering fees, no immunity if shit goes sideways, no POW treatment if shit goes really sideways, and you want me and my crew flying in to pick up a bunch of starving sods like we're a taxi service? What's the upside for me?"  
Combeferre felt as if he was running on air. He had no footing, no hold on this conversation, he saw in his mind's eye this ship floating away from him and had no idea how to hold onto it.  
"There are Sith artifacts ... "  
The smuggler scoffed.  
"Y'can find those at every corner. No thanks, pal, find someone else to do your heroics."  
The call ended, left Combeferre standing in front of the holocom, staring at the blinking lights without really seeing them. He had nothing to offer these people, except appellations to their better nature. But Enjolras had to have money, or would be able to procure some. Grantaire had contacts, Combeferre could hire himself out, weak as he was, and earn these people's rewards after the slaves were safe. There had to be some kind of leverage he could offer. Emboldened by this train of thought, Combeferre dialed the next number.   
The Republic soldier who answered, a Twi'lek woman with almost black lekku and shoulders broader than his, fully armed and armoured, already looked unamused.  
"What's this about? Make it quick, we have landfall in five."  
"I'm calling on behalf of Musichetta. We need your ship and flying skills."  
"This thing about the slaves? Huh. We have the capacity. Could even fit in some extra if we piggyback the hyperspace jump in our shuttle. But you're gonna have to clear that with General Garza, she's the one assigning us missions."  
"This would be … off the books," Combeferre said, quickly adding: "And you'd be paid. We have resources to compensate you for your service-"  
"Are you fucking kidding me?"  
Combeferre actually took a step back. The Twi'lek was interrupted for a few seconds as something crashed and shook the camera, followed by her shouting something about how the pilot had better not fly into the AA cannon's fire on purpose, before she straightened up and turned back to him.  
"The reward-"  
"Shut up, you dumbass. You're trying to bribe one of the top Republic spec ops teams into infiltratring who knows where without Republic sanctions? Court martial is the least that could happen to us, what are we supposed to do with your dirty money then, huh?"  
"But people need-"  
"I know damn well what people need. They need soldiers like us not to betray the Republic for a few lousy credits. Keep your money."

Four more potential pilots, and every call ended the same. One of them didn't even believe Combeferre was a real Jedi, and the last spat on the floor before she ended the call, just as Musichetta came in, her heavy boots hitting the plastisteel floor of Joly's dorm room like war drums. Combeferre braced himself before he turned around, trying to find peace within himself.  
"Hope you came through for us, Jedi," she said. "No luck on my end. Everyone I could reach is either too far away or caught up in their own business."  
That was it, then. Enjolras had given him this task and he had failed. No ships would be coming to Ziost. Enjolras, and Grantaire, Joly and Bahorel would face the choice of either returning with Éponine or staying and inevitably dying from either Sith aggression or the elements. He had damned his friends with his ineptitude.  
Musichetta's, face fell as his emotions, ones he wasn't supposed to have in the first place, showed clear as day.  
"Shit," she said and again: "Shit."  
Combeferre sank into the chair, head in his hands, pressing into his eyelids until he saw stars. He would not cry in front of a stranger. He would not.   
"There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the force. There is no emotion, there is peace ... "  
But even reciting the Jedi code did not help. Worse, it irritated Musichetta.  
"Would you stop doing that? Your Jedi poetry isn't going to help. Not everything's lost. Éponine has her ship, I have mine. We can fit almost a hundred people in, that's not nothing. Plus the pilot's compartment, that's at least another half dozen."  
"That's still dozens who will die," Combeferre said.  
"You don't know that."  
But he did. He leaned back in the chair, stared up at the ceiling. Blinked once, twice, three times. Swallowed the lump in his throat.  
"Everyone we leave behind is dead. The Sith will kill them all, then just buy new slaves. They'll see it as the safer alternative to having ones around who tried to escape once before. I know it. Enjolras knows it. He won't leave them behind, he'll stay on Ziost until every last slave is either free or dead."  
"That's not …" Musichetta wrung her hands, pulled at her lekku, the first time he had ever seen her not fully composed. "That poor boy Joly … he can't even fight, and that Sith lord … . No, we're not going to leave them behind. That's quitter talk."  
And Combeferre realised with perfect clarity that all the Jedi's teachings were bullshit. That the decade and a half he'd spent suppressing his emotions, pretending to be serene, peaceful, enlightened had been nothing more than delusions. What he'd felt had never disappeared. He had just hidden it all behind walls of ideology and falsehoods. Walls that now broke down.  
"QUITTER TALK?"   
The Force itself seemed to recede from him as his last connection to the thing he had believed in most tore like string. There was no power, only his futile rage that sought the first target it could find. Musichetta, faced with a Jedi losing control, squared her shoulders and stood her ground.  
"Our friends will die!" Combeferre all but howled. "What are you going to do, invade the fucking planet? There's a Sith lord and his army between us and them in case you hadn't noticed!"  
"If a Sith dies, their soldiers often scatter. It's not a perfect plan, but what other choice do we have?"  
"Not with ten Jedi I would attempt it! Get over yourself-"  
The punch came out of left field. Combeferre had not expected it, hadn't seen it coming, his head flew to the side, sharp ringing pain spreading out from his jaw. But it was not the pain that gave him pause. It was the rage that left him as quickly as it had come and left him with a hollow void where his heart should be. It was gone, but so was the construct he had made of himself over the years. His teachings rang hollow, his affections held only bitter pain. Pain that was reflected in Musichetta's eyes.  
"You're the one who needs to get over himself," she said, but where Combeferre had been lashing out in helpless anger, she was being fair. She made to say something else, what he had no way of telling, but was interrupted by Combeferre's holocom ringing. She deflated, pulled on her lekku again.  
"You should probably take that," she said and left. The dorm room door shut with a hiss and Combeferre was alone. He had nothing left to hope with and so when he answered the call he expected nothing but the worst.

It was Master Satele Shan herself and her expression told him everything.  
"I can explain-" he started but knew that even as he said it, he was capable of nothing.  
"You had better have a good one. We have spoken with Master Triball at the Hoth digsite. You never even showed up. If this has something to do with that transmission, we ordered you to disregard that."  
"I didn't," Combeferre said, seeing no point in lying anymore. He felt as if he hadn't slept in days. "I lied to you and asked an old friend for help. Master Satele, I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but he and four others have already gone to Ziost. They're trapped there, if no one comes to their rescue, they will die."  
Did he imagine it, or did he see a hint of sympathy in Master Satele's eyes?  
"I'm afraid our decision hasn't changed. I'm sorry for your friends, but this is what happens when you go against the wisdom of the Jedi Order. Turning from the light never brings anything but ruin, I hope you understand that now."  
"But I didn't-" Combeferre started, then stopped. Had he not turned from the light? Hadn't he indulged his feelings for Enjolras and Grantaire, nurtured them, even embraced them? Hadn't he just now given into rage like a Sith would, his own weakness the only reason why the power of the dark side hadn't swallowed him whole? He looked down, heard instead of saw Satele soften up.  
"I can sense you are not completely lost to us. Even the most powerful master sometimes struggles with the dark side. Return to Tython without delay, and we will do our best to help you return to the light."  
"Yes, master."   
Once again the holocommunicator grew dim. Combeferre put it away with mechanical motions, went outside. Musichetta leaned against the wall just outside the dorm, arms crossed, brow furrowed.  
"I know you don't think we can win-" she started.   
"We can't. I can't. I'm returning to Tython."  
Musichetta stared at him, open betrayal written all over her.  
"You're leaving? After all this, with our friends about to die, and you're just running away?"  
"There's nothing I can do." Combeferre pulled his robe closer around him. "I'm useless. I couldn't convince one pilot to aid us. I'm no diplomat. I'm certainly not a warrior. The only thing I know about Sith is who their great grandparents were married to. I don't know what I was thinking. My delusions already condemned my best friend to death. I won't drag any more people into this."  
"Fine." Musichetta's voice sounded as hollow as he felt. "Run, then. I'm going to Ziost, and I'm going to rescue as many people as I can."  
"There won't be any chance our friends can stay hidden if you show up and alert the entire Imperial army to an enemy presence on their planet."  
"If I don't do something they'll die for sure."  
Combeferre only shook his head, tired of arguing, tired of being useless, tired of everything. He left Musichetta behind in the hall, staring after him, his own footsteps hollow and heavy on the ground.


	18. Chapter 18

The guards took Bossuet away. The whole time Feuilly stood by, flinching at every pitiful wail but not saying anything, not stepping forward, not offering to share the pain. The guards went out of sight and he broke down. His knees hit the ground, water running against him up to his hip and he buried his head in his hands and cried.  
Bahorel overtook Enjolras on his way to him, but it was Joly, hidden behind some rubble after having tended to the injured, who was with him first.  
He whispered urgently to Feuilly, whose shoulders shook badly. The other slaves, although clearly curious, kept their distance.  
"It's not your fault, don't blame yourself. Anyone would have acted the same."  
"He relied on me," Feuilly said, the words forced out between miserable sobs. "And I let him down. I stood there like a coward and said nothing. I could have spared him pain, and I thought only of myself."  
Joly fell silent. None of the others said anything either. They didn't know if coming forward would have changed anything, but obviously Feuilly believed it would have and still chose not to. Enjolras didn't blame him, but the admiration he had nurtured for this man, whom he thought brave and selfless in anything, took a hit. He stood, not knowing what to say. Grantaire came to his rescue.  
"This is what slavery does to you," he said. He was unusually skittish, eyes darting around on the lookout for guards, his head ducked to avoid detection, but he spoke with the voice of someone who knew the truth. "You don't survive being a slave if you're brave and selfless." He knelt down between Bahorel and Joly, forced Feuilly to look at him. "Brave slaves die. But you're going to survive, and you're going to get yourself and your people out of here. And when you're free, and you have something to your name other than a great heaping dose of misery. Then you get to be brave all you like. But right now, you need to stop whining and make a plan."  
Feuilly had stopped crying. Grantaire was rough, and snappish, had obviously not been kidding when he said a world as strong in the dark side as this one would have an effect on him, but he got through to Feuilly, who nodded, wiped away his tears and only winced a little when Bahorel and Joly helped him to his feet.   
"We have to go," he said, turning to Enjolras. "Right now. Bossuet won't be able to resist their torture. They use Sith mind tricks, not even Jedi can resist. I know this accelerates your timetable, but we have no other choice. We'll hide in the ruins until-"  
A scream, terrified and warbling, interrupted him. The crowd had parted to reveal an old man, supported by a younger Twi'lek woman talking to him in low tones, trying to calm him down, shaking and pointing at their group.  
Feuilly stepped forward.  
"What-"  
"I know what I know, I know, right there, his face ... "  
"Calm down, Mabeuf. What are you talking about?"   
"The Sith Lord, the master, the terrible Lord. My nephew, my poor, poor nephew dead at his hand. He's here, he's here!"  
He cried out again, fear written all over his face as Enjolras followed his pointed finger.   
Directly to Grantaire.

All eyes rested on the man. Then, as if pulled by inevitable tides, they landed on Grantaire who stood in the little light their lamps and the setting sun afforded, no longer hidden in shadows, eyes wide, caught red-handed.   
Enjolras knew it was true, even as his conscious mind reeled to find another explanation for the old man's behaviour. He knew it in the expression of Grantaire's face, of being caught, of trying to find a way out, of the consequences of who he really was.  
Enjolras knew it was true, because Grantaire had never even lied. He had never claimed to be a Jedi, Enjolras had just assumed. Anyone could get a different colour crystal for their lightsaber. He had assumed and Grantaire had simply never corrected that assumption. And Enjolras, in his foolish naivety, had led a Sith Lord right into their midst. That's how the soldiers must have known to take Bossuet, through Grantaire's subtle influence. They had become headless and maneuvered themselves into a trap. It all made sense now.  
And still he had the nerve to look innocent, caught in the headlights.  
"I can explain …" he said and Enjolras snapped.  
" _Leave_!" His blaster was in his hands before he spent a conscious thought. He aimed at Grantaire, blinked the sweat out of his eyes.  
"Please, listen to me," Grantaire said, hands raised, unarmed but Enjolras knew what his kind was capable of. He had the evidence all around him. "I was a Sith, yes, but I'm on your side, I'm not like them anymore-"  
"Leave. Now."  
"Don't do this to me, Enj, don't send me away, not here, not you, please-"  
"OUT!"  
Grantaire flinched, looked around. Joly, Bahorel, neither would look up. The slaves, when his gaze hit them, flinched away, huddled together, the mothers curled protectively over their children. Feuilly glared at him, venom in his eyes, a curse unspoken on his lips, kept there by his own fear.  
Enjolras's hands shook, the weight of it all crushing him, the lives he had on his conscience bearing down on him, this group of walking dead with a Sith in their midst and nothing between them but Enjolras' blaster. Grantaire didn't attack. Why should he, since he already got what he came for. Senseless slaughter was about to unfold and he didn't need to be here for it. He walked past Joly and Bahorel who stepped out of his way, wouldn't look him in the eye. He passed Feuilly, and the old man. He passed Enjolras, the wind freezing the sweat drops on both their faces. Enjolras blinked again, forced his expression to remain what it was. He nudged his blaster.  
"Go. You've done enough to these people."  
Grantaire went. He climbed up and out of the ruins, swallowed by the night almost immediately. 

Enjolras, knowing he shouldn't, wondered what Grantaire would do now. If he would meet up with his master, who could be Tholomyés for all he knew, or if he would look for other victims to deceive and play mindgames with.  
Feuilly looked between them, brow furrowed. He looked for an explanation, of how what he still thought was a Republic covert team could have been this easily infiltrated by a Sith. But his concerns were more immediate. The crowd had begun to disperse, worried and fearful, most barely understanding what was going on, everything happening too fast.  
Feuilly turned and spoke to the assembled slaves, not few viewing him with open disdain.  
"Listen to me!" he began, voice weak from injury and the remnants of tears but picking up strength with every word he spoke. "The guards are coming in force. I know many of you didn't want to risk an escape, but the choice has been taken from you. Once they find out we're planning an escape, they'll slaughter the entire camp just to be sure their authority isn't threatened. Come with me and these brave Republic soldiers and when the sun rises tomorrow you will be free!"  
The slaves spoke in hushed whispers to each other, pointed at a jagged outcropping of stone further south, more metal hovels glinting in the last rays of sunshine falling on Sadow's Valley. More than a few looked in the direction Grantaire had disappeared to. Judging from the tones of their voice that was, against all odds a good thing. They seemed to be afraid he'd come back. They appeared to come to a conclusion, and the old man from before stepped forward.  
"We're with you, my dear boy. We believe in you."  
Joly's face was set into a grim expression.  
"Let's hope Combeferre will come through," he said. Enjolras refused to allow himself trepidation. Instead he tried to imagine how smug he'd get to look when Combeferre arrived with the ships, despite Joly's doubts.


	19. Chapter 19

Jehan didn't see his friends descend into Sadow's Valley, but he felt their presence wane as they were swallowed up by Ziost's persistent dark side aura. Other than most Jedi, Jehan saw the value of the dark side, separated from the terrible ideology of the Sith. He knew that dark was not the same as evil, that even the frightening and obscene held beauty in its own right. Just like the man he'd been tasked to distract.  
They walked side by side out from the landing pads towards a plateau overlooking Sadow's Valley.   
"This place looks quite imposing," Jehan mentioned as they passed the stronghold's outer walls. "Are you never afraid coming here?"  
Montparnasse answered with a crooked grin.  
"Not much one for fear. Besides, most of these guys ignore me," he said.  
"Their loss, I'm sure."  
Montparnasse grinned, but Jehan felt the happiness his comment had caused. Unexpectedly he wanted to do it again, for more than just distraction.  
"Pretty faces aren't impressive around here."  
"Apparently, neither are pretty souls."  
Jehan filled every syllable with the force, directed it to draw Montparnasse in, keep his attention, flatter him into having eyes only for him. Still the effect he had surprised him a little.  
Montparnasse hid a bashful smile behind his hand, nothing like the petty murderer Éponine had described to him just before she sent them off. He looked like no one had ever paid any positive attention to him. And Jehan, who had wandered warzones to save flowers most considered weeds, had a soft spot for forgotten treasures.

Montparnasse used the briefly uneven terrain as an excuse to avoid answering and Jehan gave him time, certain that he could give his friends, and Éponine as much time as they needed. Perhaps, if he was clever, he could even find an opportunity to keep Montparnasse from discovering them and aid his friends at the same time.  
"I never met a Jedi like you," he said eventually, after they had climbed a small hill.   
Some kind of building project was going on here, likely an extension to the main stronghold, and they stopped by a pile of durasteel plates and wooden beams. Montparnasse hopped up to sit on one of them, facing the vast jagged landscape of melting glaciers and exposed ruins before a brilliant red sunset, paying none of it any attention.  
"I have never met a man like you," Jehan retorted.   
He wasn't lying. He'd always been more sensitive to the auras that surrounded living things. He could tell, often at a glance, if a man was righteous or cowardly, gentle or cruel, inspired or hopeless. And although no one was exactly like the next, Montparnasse was special in his own way. Terrible and charming, shrouding himself in darkness, cradling hurt close to his center, but woven through the very fabric of his being something like hope, and desire, an ideal Jehan did not recognise, a wish for something hidden too deep for him to see. He desperately wanted to know what it was Montparnasse coveted so strongly that it had become part of who he was, and had to use all of his willpower to keep focused on the task at hand. He wondered if Éponine had finished her spice deal with the guards yet, and if it was safe to return. She'd keep Montparnasse occupied once she'd secured their landing rights, but right now it was Jehan's job to distract him.  
"Yeah? What's so special about a crook like me?"  
His words meant to convey self deprecation, his tone spoke of pride. He was clearly fishing for compliments. Jehan was all too willing to validate him.  
He spoke in low tones, serenaded Montparnasse with sweet words, only his own indomitable focus keeping him from losing himself in Montparnasse's dark eyes, threatening to draw him in like windstorms on the plains of Dantooine. 

Only because of this focus he saw the black blotches against the grey-white ice of the bottom of Sadow's Valley. He made an excuse, walked up to the edge of the canyon until his feet met the edge, the depth below calling to him, inviting him in.   
Ziost relished in any misery that could befall him, he could feel the planet's force wishing him to fall to an early death, for his body to feed the plants waking up from their long hibernation under the ice. Just barely at the edge of the slave camp - brackish brown and metallic grey - the black blotches moved closer. Soldiers. Imperial soldiers, likely a private Sith commando. Tholomyés' men, feeling it necessary to approach a camp full of helpless slaves in force. Why, Jehan wondered, if not because his friends had been discovered.   
He turned his head surreptitiously. Montparnasse wasn't paying him any attention. Jehan produced the communicator hidden in his robes.  
"Enjolras," he whispered as soon as he picked up. "Soldiers, on their way to you. Twenty or more, heavily armed, black armour. They come like Taanab ravens. I will try to fly faster."  
"Hurry."   
The tinny voice was barely audible through the com. Enjolras must be somewhere the signal didn't reach. Away from the camp hopefully. Jehan ended the call, put his com away. He had to get out from underneath Montparnasse's eye, join his friends at the bottom of the valley.   
He was too strong willed to fall for a sleep trick, misdirection would be a better bet. A distraction, being separated, finding each other again once all this was over. Jehan could work with that. He focused on the wind and air around him, the subtle shifting of light and heat, the cold slowing things down but he drew from the formless air pictures, built a road to Montparnasse's mind.  
"Do you hear that?" Jehan asked and opened the door to let in the sounds of brawling men, unwelcome guests in their little world surely.  
"People, I guess."  
Jehan sent seeds of worry, little bubbles of anxiety, to unsettle Montparnasse enough to want to avoid the intruders.   
"Perhaps we should split up?" Jehan suggested, feeling the pressure of time, the soldiers below converging on Enjolras' people. "Best not let them see us."  
Montparnasse came up to his side, composed, eyes cool, mouth pressed into a thin line.   
"They don't disturb me," he said. "At least not as much as the soldiers will disturb whatever you and 'Ponine are after down in that valley."

Jehan's heart skipped a beat. His lungs seized, mind frozen, as Montparnasse threw back his tricks and shut off his mind with a mental steel door that nearly crippled Jehan. He stumbled backwards, reeling, hurt from the sudden rejection.   
Trained, he thought, to resist Jedi.   
But where? Who would have taught Montparnasse such a thing?  
"I don't know what you're talking about."  
Montparnasse shook his head. Disappointed, like he expected better of Jehan.  
"I'm the better liar. Stay here, don't make any sudden moves. Don't make me hurt you."  
He could, Jehan realised. If he was trained, if that was why Thenardier kept him around, then he could take Jehan on in a fight. And behind him and below him in the valley, the soldiers marched.  
"Please, let me go," Jehan said, well aware he was pleading, searching for something in Montparnasse's mind that could convince him it hadn't all been a lie. That what he'd seen and felt was a person with wishes and a capacity for mercy and compassion. Not the solid block of emptiness before him now. Not the calculating ruthless murderer Éponine had said he was.   
"Can't afford to." Montparnasse said. He stepped in Jehan's way as he tried to move past, not reaching for a weapon yet, but making sure Jehan wouldn't get out of this without a fight. A fight they'd both got hurt over. And despite their mutual subterfuge, Jehan had no inclination to hurt him.  
"Down in the valley, that doesn't affect you. I promise, if you let me go, no one will be the wiser."  
"Can't do."  
"Why not? Please, tell me, maybe we can ... " come to an agreement, he wanted to say but saw that Montparnasse was not receptive. He had crossed his arms, turned away at an angle, close enough to stop him if Jehan attempted to escape back up the path to the ship and lifts, pretending to look over the valley behind Jehan. He was done talking.  
They stood in this uncomfortable stalemate, Jehan wracking his brain for some way out, when the heavy whirring of machinery caught their attention. They both looked up to see the eastern AA gun boot up, its targeting system honing in on a tiny speck of darkness in the low atmosphere.  
"That's the Four O'Clock," Jehan said at almost the same time Montparnasse called out, seemingly to himself "Éponine, what-"  
The gun fired, a whistling sound, an explosion. The thunder shook the earth, black clouds, red fire, sparks of lightning and burning metal and then, out of the explosion, plummeting a burning wreck to the ground behind the fortress of the Sith Lord.

Éponine was not having a great day. It served her right, she supposed, for helping a bunch of Republic wannabe-heroes on their hail mary attempt to rescue slaves she didn't even know. In the course of which she was forced to part with enough spice to pay her rent for a year, just to be allowed to stay on this miserable rock long enough to pull off their plan.   
"Half now, and you'll get the location for the other half after I take off," she said, standing her ground against a guard at least a head taller than her. He tried to intimidate her, stepped close enough that she could see her reflection in his black shining armour, but she refused to back away. She held eye contact, hoped Jehan was doing his job and that Montparnasse wouldn't come running back any second now and go prattling to her father. Finally the guard acquiesed, dropped his posturing.  
"Fine. Get the first half now."  
She turned back to her ship, made sure she was out of sight before she opened one of the hidden floor compartments and ducked into the crawl space that on a real Hutt transporter would be reserved for mucus and other slug excretions. Here it was reserved for spice, which she partitioned and, making a note to hide the second part somewhere even these dim guards would find if she gave them coordinates after they left, returned to the landing ramp.

The guards were gone.   
Her father stood before her, face twisted into mean satisfaction.   
"I knew it," he said, stretching out each syllable. "Knew you were scheming behind my back. All these years of you saying 'I don't like slave labour' and 'These are people, daddy' – I knew it was a ruse. Step away from the ship, young lady."  
Éponine stepped away from the ship, hands up in a gesture she hoped was placating. It figured that her father's paranoia would catch up with her sooner or later. She just hated that it had to be now.  
"This isn't what it looks like," she said and had enough presence left to not roll her eyes, both at herself and her father believing it was all about him.  
"Don't bother, girl. Lord Tholomyés, he's on his way down to that camp right now, caught himself one of them slaves, made him talk. He said there was a Jedi right here on this planet, and who do I know who just introduced me to that business partner of hers?"  
Whoever they had captured, must have been talking about Grantaire, the only one they would have seen. But Thenardier assumed it had been Jehan, and Éponine was not about to correct that assumption. In less than an hour Musichetta was slated to enter Ziost's atmosphere and the AA guns had to be down by then. A plan was beginning to form in Éponine's mind, but first she had to get rid of her father. 

She solved the immediate issue by running away.  
"Stop right there, little lady!"  
Thenardier took off after her but Éponine was faster, fitter, had done more physical labour in the last month than Thenardier in the last twenty years. She jumped over crates, rounded sharp corners, mind and body racing. She didn't have the time or the codes to take the AA guns down from the ground, needed the heavy firepower of her ship. But first she needed to warn her people. If Thenardier had told the truth, Tholomyés himself was on his way to them right now. In either case their plans had been discovered. She called Grantaire's com mid-run, cursed when he didn't pick up and tried Enjolras'. He did answer.  
"We may be discovered," he said before she could get a word in edgewise. She frowned, ducked underneath a heavy construction beam as she doubled back towards her landing pad.  
"No maybe about it. Tholomyés is on his way to you. I have to get this ship off the ground, stay out of sight. My father's snooping around. If Combeferre doesn't pull through-"  
"He will," Enjolras said, and Éponine wanted to believe him. "Don't let them catch you."  
"Never will," she said and hung up, just in time for her father to catch up with her, pull at her favourite jacket. She shucked it with as much regret as she could allow herself to have and then made one last dash for her ship. She just needed to get this bird off the ground.

Jehan threw himself forward, ramming into Montparnasse and sending him tumbling to the ground. He found his footing, jumped over Montparnasse's body, saw the astonishment in his face, the shock rendering him motionless for a handful of seconds. Jehan sprinted along the path, around the fortress, heard footsteps behind him, Montparnasse catching up, both their heavy breathing mingling. Jehan pushed the waves of sorrow down, couldn't tell if they were his or Montparnasse's, forced himself to go on. Montparnasse reached for him, pulled him back by his robe but Jehan tore himself free. He almost fell forward, caught himself just in time but this time Montparnasse succeeded. He grabbed Jehan, first his robe, then his arm and they went tumbling down together. 

His jaw hit the frozen ground, Montparnasse's heavy weight on top of him, pushing all air out of his lungs. The serenity from the light side was pushed away by Ziost's dark presence, the sight of the soldiers down in the valley and the terrible smell of engine fuel burning up over them.   
Éponine, wounded or dead, his friends in equally mortal danger. Jehan cried out, kicked at Montparnasse with all his might, bore down on him with the force but it resisted him, had rarely been used in fights and never easily. The force knew who he was even if Jehan wanted to forget. He settled for pushing Montparnasse away, struggled to his feet and climbed the stairs to a terrace of the fortress. 

Beyond it, melting ice in steaming clouds, lay the burning wreck of the Four O'clock. Jehan stilled, reached for the life in the force, found grass and bugs dying from the heat and the fire and the pressure. He felt nothing bigger. Montparnasse caught up to him, but he didn't try to restrain him. Instead he froze, just as Jehan had, and this time he was sure he felt sorrow from Montparnasse, a crack in the facade.  
"Is there nothing you can do?" Montparnasse asked, weak and hoping for a Jedi miracle. Jehan had none to give.


	20. Chapter 20

The climb from the ancient frozen remains of a once forest into the ruins of a Sith lord's tomb was more arduous than Enjolras expected. They helped the sick and elderly along as best they could, Bahorel carrying an older Zabrak woman with a nasty broken leg. Despite his additional load he caught up to Enjolras easily, fell in step beside him.  
"Did you know?" Enjolras asked. He kept walking, figured if Bahorel was in on it or not, he couldn't do much more harm. And, strangely, Enjolras felt less anger at the thought of Bahorel's betrayal than that of Grantaire's.   
"No." Bahorel carefully stepped over some rubble. "I knew he wasn't a Jedi or anything, but I figured he was just from one of the small sects on Nar Shaddaa. They pop up sometimes and they have weird ideas. But a Sith? Never in a million years."  
"They are good at that," Enjolras said darkly. "Playing the long game."  
"Must have been one hell of a con. All that for a bunch of slaves and randos from the Republic? I don't know."  
By the time they reached the bottom he was breathing heavily but tried to keep it to himself, in the face of dozens of slaves who had made this trek back and forth for months and years with heavy debris on their backs.   
Feuilly was agitated, pacing back and forth. Behind him Joly and Bahorel counted the slaves from the south camp that came in after them, tried to take stock of and distribute their sorry selections of weapons. A handful of mining lasers, most of them broken. Pickaxes, knives made from stone and metal scraps. One ancient bowcaster without a power source. And according to Jehan an entire contingent of Tholomyés' private army on their way.  
His holocom rang, told him it was Éponine on the other end. He started without greeting.  
"We may be discovered," Enjolras said. Éponine, at the other end, showed her worry in the furrow of her brow, but not her voice which remained as collected as ever.  
"No maybe about it. Tholomyés is on his way to you. I have to get this ship off the ground, stay out of sight. My father's snooping around. If Combeferre doesn't pull through-"  
"He will," Enjolras said and, as if his confidence had summoned him his comm announced that Combeferre was calling. "Don't let them catch you."  
"Never will," she said and hung up, her face replaced with Combeferre's.  
Enjolras was not force sensitive. But even so he could feel that something was wrong even before Combeferre opened his mouth.  
"Enjolras … I called because, … look, I didn't mean to … there were some problems. I - I dont know what to say ... "  
"Grantaire," Enjolras said. "He must have given us bad contacts, lured you to stay behind. One less Jedi to deal with, and our escape cut off."  
"What? Why would he do that. Enjolras?"  
Enjolras told him everything. The old man recognising Grantaire, his secret coming to light. The people on the way. Even as he spoke he realised how little all of it mattered.  
"No ships are coming," Enjolras said, voice hollow, the space behind his eyes dead and blind. Joly and Bahorel looked up, shock and doubt in their faces, mirrored in Feuilly's face a thousand times over. He crossed the distance between the slaves he'd been coordinating and Enjolras, reached out but before their hands could touch he let his sink.  
"I'm sorry … " Combeferre said. "Musichetta's still ... I couldn't stop her. She's determined to save people but I don't know how she can."  
"But ... " Feuilly spoke up, the question in his eyes the same as in the people's around him. "The Republic? Why can't they send the ships, what happened?"

Feuilly hadn't finished speaking when an explosion rocked the ground. They looked around but the ruins remained steady, and yet they were filled with dread. One of the slaves mentioned the AA guns, their sound eerily like this. Enjolras shuddered to think what they had hit.  
And he had no answer. His head was filled with portents of his own death, visions of his body broken and bloody and dead on the frozen rocks of Sadow's Valley, his friends to be tortured, enslaved, killed, by the Sith. He forced himself to look up, look Feuilly in the eye when he said: "We're not with the Republic."  
Feuilly remained steady, looked at Enjolras for an explanation, face set in stone. Even bruised and wounded his face had always shown his heart. Now there was nothing. "We never were. We found your distress call, we thought we could rescue you by ourselves. The Republic and Jedi wouldn't ... the Treaty, there was no ..." Enjolras petered off, forced into silence by Feuilly's stony expression.   
"I'm sorry," he finished lamely.  
Feuilly swallowed, turned to Joly and Bahorel. "Is this true? You're alone?"  
Helplessly they shrugged.   
"We tried to hire ships to come here, but ... "  
He had let the com sink, Combeferre still on the line, the image flickering as it tried to stabilise itself against the lopsided holoprojector.   
"But your friend fell through," Feuilly finished. "And instead of telling me, at any point, that you're _nothing_ , that you can't do anything for us, you decided to lie. Because who gives a shit what we think? Who cares if we want to be part of your little adventure, am I right? We're just slaves to you, we get to work, to die, to be heroically rescued, but we don't get to have a say in any of that."  
"That's not -"  
"Don't piss on me, Enjolras, and sell it to me as rain. Your lie just killed us all. If we'd known, we'd never have run away. We should have -"

Feuilly turned, carding his hands through his hair, left Enjolras standing at the ruin's entrance to care for his people who had become agitated. Enjolras didn't know how many had heard that the rescue wasn't coming, but the word spread by the second. Soon the people were clamouring for Feuilly, demanding to go back to try and smooth things over with the guards and Sith. Feuilly knew as well as Enjolras that that wasn't an option. It was too late, their escape started, over three hundred people still coming in through the ruins' entrance, a fraction of them with any real desire to take the risk, learning what had happened and looking up at the last light of the day, promising only death.

Enjolras followed their gaze outside, in the direction where Grantaire disappeared to. The confrontation had left him running on empty, the last fumes of his energy gone. His bones ached as he squared his shoulders. He wondered where Grantaire was now, then pushed the thought aside. He was a Sith, the very kind of monster they were about to face.  
"I'll go to the stronghold," he said. "If Musichetta is coming the AA guns need to come offline, and someone still needs to disable the slave collars. Éponine can't, wherever she is now. Maybe … There are long range communicators there. We'll call for help the same way you did. If they hear ... "  
"What makes you think they will answer?"  
Feuilly got up, jaw clenched from the pain every motion must have been causing him. He levelled at Enjolras a steely glare.   
"They'll ignore you, like they ignored us. Won't they?"  
"I have to try. Stay hidden, hunker down. Try to ... build defenses. I'll come back as soon as I can."  
"No, you stay."  
It was Bahorel, stepping out from between Feuilly's people.   
"You're the leader, these folks are going to need you and Feuilly once the soldiers come. I'll go to the fort, shut down the collars."

No one stopped Bahorel. They watched him leave as they had watched Grantaire. To them it looked like all hope was lost, the plan gone, their options all but exhausted, the people who trapped them in these ruins to be executed leaving one by one. One Sith excised from their midst but their supposed saviour nothing but a boy with illusions of heroism.   
Maybe it hadn't been Grantaire at all, maybe he hadn't done anything to hurt them. Evil or not, ultimately it was Enjolras who condemned these people to death because he'd thought he could do what the Republic and Jedi with their armies and warriors didn't dare. Grantaire might well be the only innocent one in all this.  
Enjolras pushed the thought away, angry at himself. He'd been fooled by Grantaire's charm, by his cynical humour, by his handsome eyes. He'd fallen for a Sith Lord's scheming as if he didn't know what they were and what they did. He'd always thought himself smarter than that. Then again, he'd also thought he could free dozens of slaves from an Imperial heart world. And now they were all going to pay the price for his stupidity.


	21. Chapter 21

Darkness set over the valley, the last rays of sunshine filtering through the perpetual steam above. Ruined pillars and dead trees jutted out of the frozen landscape. 

Grantaire stumbled forward, shivering against the cold, boots soaked through with ice cold water, body aching. It wasn't just the cold or the rejection stinging too much like heartbreak, but Ziost itself. He hadn't been on a world this steeped in the darkside since he left his homeworld for good, and the force seemed to know. It pierced him from all angles, fine needlepricks of the ever present dark side, reminding him of the power he used to hold, the destruction he used to wreak. It reminded him of all the horrible things he ever did, and Grantaire was helpless to defend himself against it. 

He sunk down on a part of the ruins climbing out from beneath the ice, just as cold but dryer. He tried rubbing some warmth into his arms, but stopped his efforts soon. The cold he felt didn't come from wind or water.   
It came from a chasm of three years, yawning and drawing him in, whispering into his ear that he'd never stopped being Sith. For as long as he lived that was all people would see in him, and his only choice was to hide or embrace it. He'd spent years hiding who he was, building a life, and all it took was one damned slave to recognise him, to destroy everything he had gained. Grantaire shook his head, knowing full well it wouldn't drive away the anger building inside him. If he'd become a Jedi, if he'd gone with Fantine when she offered what felt like a lifetime ago, he would have had the Jedi code to protect himself against the creeping darkness. He'd still be powerful, he'd be redeemed fully, he could have told Enjolras who he was. He might have met Combeferre, and he wouldn't have been consumed by raging jealousy and these cursed feelings of inadequacy. 

But he was nothing. He had left behind the doctrine of the Sith and chosen not to replace it with anything else. Disillusioned with the Jedi, unconvinced of all the other philosophies, he'd decided he'd rather give up his power for good than use it to do any good with it. And now he had nothing to protect himself against Ziost, alone and stranded on a planet by people whom he helped. He had sacrificed the life he had built for them and this was how they repaid him.   
Grantaire groaned, pulled at his hair, forced himself to his feet and kept walking to try and distract himself. He couldn't resist forever. He could barely resist now. The dark side fed on every emotion he had ever felt, and twisted it, used it to stoke a fire that had always been burning. And why shouldn't he be angry? He had tried to help, he had done everything for these people he could. He'd known what Ziost would do to him, had known that if he stepped foot on an Imperial heartworld again he'd be recognised sooner or later. He had known, even earlier, that picking up his old contacts would get the attention of the Imperial military, who had been searching idly for him for years. For Enjolras and Combeferre he had led the Imperials to his cantina, his most precious thing he had built from nothing, the only safe space he had in the entire galaxy, and allowed it to be destroyed. His fury built and built, with each twist and turn in his mind his old teachings returned. If he chose to, if he only made that one small final step, he could seize on these emotions, use them like he had before. 

And if he did the Grantaire he had worked so hard on becoming would be dead.  
The realisation drove the last of his strength away. He stopped, not knowing where he was, the darkness and the perpetual hum of machines pumping steam into the air disorienting enough without the sudden emptiness in his mind. He was alone, with his thoughts, with the creeping darkness threatening to swallow him whole. He was not welcome with Enjolras, and Éponine had to be there for the people they'd come here to save, she couldn't risk being sent away along with him if she took him along. This planet, with all its millions and billions of people, was empty.   
Grantaire pulled his jacket closer around himself, felt something heavy in his pocket. His holocom. It wouldn't hurt to call, to see if there was someone left who wouldn't reject him outright.   
To help him keep the darkness at bay for a bit longer before he lost himself for good.


	22. Chapter 22

Combeferre put his communicator away with mechanical motions. Around him people boarded their shuttles, disembarked, went on their way. A constant stream of advertisements mixed with the noise of people living, arguing, going about their business everywhere around him. 

This once Combeferre wasn't bothered.   
Nar Shaddaa had lost its overwhelming nature. He felt deaf to the force, like the space directly around him was a barrier that nothing could go through. He should never have left Tython. If he hadn't interfered, these slaves would have survived. Now, because the Sith Lord had found out about their plans, they would all be killed. Except for Grantaire, probably.   
Grantaire, a Sith.   
It made sense, Combeferre supposed, that he never suspected. Nar Shaddaa was loud, he'd never been able to feel Jehan's presence properly either. The perfect place for someone to hide. And now Grantaire was home again. Had he taken his revenge for being exposed already? On his way back to his master to report his success?  
Combeferre shook his head. Whatever Grantaire was, he wasn't responsible for this. Hadn't he tried to talk them out of this? No, it was Combeferre with his lack of any meaningful skills and Enjolras for putting faith in him when he didn't deserve it.  
The holocommunicator rang again. Combeferre debated ignoring it. When he picked up after all he wished he hadn't.

"Don't hang up."  
"Grantaire ... "  
He couldn't muster the energy to be outraged. He imagined Enjolras fuming, righteous anger fueling him on a rant about justice and love. Enjolras wouldn't have felt so personally betrayed, would he?  
"Don't hang up, please, I just want to talk."  
Combeferre said nothing, but he didn't hang up. Grantaire floundered but spoke.  
"I know I have no right to ask, but please, just talk to me. I'm alone, it's dark. I can't … Combeferre, please."  
It took Combeferre a while to realise that the fear in Grantaire's voice didn't come from the low light conditions. It was dark, the whole planet was dark and for some reason that scared Grantaire. Had scared him enough that he hadn't wanted to go in the first place. Because he'd be recognised, of course.   
Combeferre, knowing of Sith tactics, of their ability to manipulate, still found cracks forming in his conviction.  
"What do you want me to say? That I never would have caught on to you? Congratulations, you fooled us all."

Grantaire didn't answer at first. He stayed quiet, just the shadowed outline of his holographic image indicating the call hadn't dropped. Combeferre was content to let it be. He watched the screen announcing shuttle arrivals. Five docking bays down Musichetta likely prepared for takeoff if she hadn't left already. In less than three minutes his shuttle was due to be boarded and he'd be going back to Tython where he couldn't do any more damage.  
"I admired you. Still do."  
Combeferre looked down, had almost forgotten about the call.   
"I'm Jedi."  
"I know. But you're brilliant. When we talked ... that day, when you talked to me about force philosophy, I thought you must be the smartest man in the galaxy. If I'd been half as clever, maybe ... But you could still do something, come up with some plan. Enjolras needs you, he's alone in this, Jehan is gone, he won't answer my calls, Éponine is hurt. You have to help. The Sith will slaughter them."  
"You know from experience?"  
It was a cruel thing to say but Combeferre was beyond caring. Grantaire drew his shoulders up but he endured his jibes.  
"Yes. I do. These people will do their worst, and I can't stop them."  
"Can't you?"  
Grantaire looked up, as if gauging if Combeferre was being sarcastic.  
"Power comes from conviction, we both know that. I don't believe in anything anymore."  
"It also comes from lightsaber form," Combeferre said, drily thinking to himself that he must be in more dire need of the Order's help if he was calmly conversing with a Sith. "Something you looked proficient in last time I checked."  
"You ..."  
"I never picked it up, Grantaire, I'm useless in a battle. The only thing I can do to a Sith is embarrass him publicly."  
He trailed off, a thought catching him unawares. Could it be?  
"I have to go," Combeferre said and didn't wait for an answer. He hung up, rooted through his spare belongings for his datapad. Taken with him to have a diversion on the long flight from Tython when he first left. A bloodline, the most recent one he'd worked on, the one he'd gone to find a reference for when he stumbled on Feuilly's distress call. 

He scrolled through the data as his shuttle called for people to board. Minutes passed, the pilot calling for the last passenger to please make his way to the shuttle gate, but now Combeferre was sure. And he had come up with a plan, just like Grantaire had asked him to.  
Combeferre shot out of his seat, broke into a run, away from the shuttle to Tython, into the wide hallway, counting down landing dock bays one by one, begging the force to delay Musichetta just long enough. He skidded around the corner of landing dock five, came to a halt. Found Musichetta trying to detangle a fuel cable.   
"Jedi boy, what a surprise," she said, an eyebrow raised. Combeferre, Force flowing freely through him once again, straightened the fuel cable with a snap.  
"We're going to Ziost," he said and watched Musichetta's stony facade crack to reveal the grin of a maverick.


	23. Chapter 23

They spent the night building up defenses as best they could. Once the fighting started they couldn't remain in the ruins. According to Feuilly they were prone to sudden floods and cave-ins, making it a bad place to fight an army. They had hours, rather than days, as the soldiers searched for them, finding the slave camps empty, every single slave gone to follow Feuilly. Over three hundred, and they had ships with space for less than a third of that. He could think of no miracle that would save them now, but he worked with Feuilly to build up defenses nonetheless, helped his people prop up makeshift barricades, find places from which to spring ambushes, do anything to keep himself busy and not think about the fact that he had condemned himself and hundreds to a slow death. The slaves avoided him when they could, took his commands but avoided eye contact, treated him like the murdering scum that enslaved them. They knew it was his ego that killed them. He was no different from their masters in any way that mattered.  
They worked through the night, listening with every second for an army approaching. The ruins at least masked their lifesigns and the signals from their slave collars. They could remain hidden until the army was in visual range, but sooner or later they would think to search the ruins.

The sun rose, pale and dim through the steam as the machines, large behemoths of metal and electricity, picked up the speed to melt the ice away from the valley.   
It was almost midday, no one had eaten, most had barely slept, when the Imperials approached. On some level Enjolras knew there couldn't be that many, that the soldiers Jehan had seen numbered in the low dozens, not the thousands his mind tried to convince him there were.   
"Hide," Enjolras said to Feuilly. "All of you. Until the slave collars come down you can't risk fighting back."  
"They won't use them to kill us," Feuilly said grimly. "They'd rather have a massacre, torture us before we die."  
"And if they torture you, you won't be able to fight. Please, hide. I'll ..."  
Hold them off, he didn't say, because he couldn't. Not alone, with only Joly to help, who had never even fired a blaster before. Not against a Sith Lord. There, leading the troops was Tholomyés, unmistakable in the black and red of a Sith Lord, face pale as the snow and ice around them.   
"We're not going to win," Joly said from his other side, hands shaking around the blaster he held. Feuilly shook his head.  
"But we're going to die fighting. We won't hide anymore. We're not going to take their humiliation anymore. It's over, but it's over on our terms."  
Enjolras turned slightly, expected the other slaves to be afraid, to retreat. They didn't. They stood behind Feuilly, faces set in the same grim expression.   
The Imperial soldiers were close enough to hear their footsteps now, dozens of armoured feet moving in lockstep, deathly silent compared to the worried and defiant susurrus of dozens of slaves gearing up for their last stand. Enjolras counted on some sort of offer of surrender, but nothing came. Feuilly had been right. Tholomyés and his army didn't want them dead or returning to their work, they wanted them screaming.  
Joly stood to his left, eyes strangely empty. Out of all of them, Joly had the least reason for being here, but it wasn't his coming death that put that expression on his face.  
"You think I shouldn't have sent him away."  
Joly glanced at Enjolras, shrugged.  
"I get it. I do. It's just ... he was my friend. "  
"He murdered someone! You heard that old man." Enjolras hissed, a stage whisper, outrage and guilt fighting against each other.  
"Couldn't we at least have listened to his side?"  
"What's there to listen to? He's … evil."  
But even as he said it, Enjolras realised he didn't believe it. In his mind he couldn't connect the image of Grantaire, eyes wide and cheeks flushed after a simple kiss as if he'd never had one before, with the ruthless kind of monster Tholomyés was. He had him fooled well. Perhaps he'd always have him fooled a little.

"He had to go," Enjolras said and Joly said nothing more, facing down the marching army.  
Bahorel had gone on ahead because he believed Enjolras' education in military tactics would help them better here, but there wasn't enough time to formulate any strategy. Feuilly's people were scattered, untrained, mostly unarmed, only a handful armed with mining blasters and other improvised weapons. The terrain favoured them, but the slave collars prevented setting an ambush, he could see the whites in Tholomyés' eyes, it was too late to do anything but fight.

Enjolras took the only action he could, he pushed Feuilly behind some rubble and fired his blaster at Tholomyés breaking into a run along the lines of slaves, the few who were armed firing their blasters, the others shouting and running at the soldiers, blind to the blaster fire, blind to the armour the soldiers were wearing. If he couldn't be the solution, he'd damn well be the distraction. He didn't know if Bahorel would succeed, didn't know if throwing himself at a Sith Lord with nothing but a prayer's chance would help, but it was the only thing he could think of doing. He fired his blaster again, missed, stopped for the fraction of a second to aim.   
The lightning hit him like liquid fire. He screamed, hand cramping around his blaster, the metal heating up, fire forcing its way underneath his skin, burning his eyes, his mouth, sharp like knives the metal fastenings of his clothes. Blind and fighting off waves of agony Enjolras dove behind cover, the stream of force lightning interrupted, his body still burning. Around him the fighting had broken out in earnest, slaves and soldiers clashing, Imperial soldiers killing two or three at a time, shaking off people clawing at their armour, pulling them down, trying to take their weapons for themselves. It should have been a massacre, but the slaves held their ground.

"Foolish Republic scum." Tholomyés' voice rung out over the platform, louder than it should have been, a reverberation underneath foretelling his doom. The heat in Enjolras' veins grew until it felt cold as ice. It was hopeless. He was not a Jedi, he was not even a soldier. He could barely fire the blaster he held, what chance did he have of surviving? Better to give up now-  
Enjolras shook his head. Sith mind tricks. Tholomyés gave him fear of death, but didn't know that was not what Enjolras truly feared. He curled his finger around the trigger, breathed in deep - the air was oppressive, sickly sweet with burning flesh - and leaned out from behind the half wall. His attack caught Tholomyés by surprise, by all accounts it should have hit, but his lightsaber came up almost automatically, deflected the blaster fire, and Enjolras was forced out of cover as Tholomyés closed in, lightning springing from his fingertips. It hit the ground just inches behind Enjolras, again and again, until he hit the wall, turned around, found Tholomyés advancing on him.  
"First, I will kill you," Tholomyés said, almost sweetly. For one sickening second Enjolras saw in his smile an uncanny semblance to Courfeyrac, his old friend who would never know what had happened to Enjolras, how he had died. The impression was fleeting, made way for the fearsome grimace of death itself. Enjolras squeezed his eyes shut, but the image remained, a Sith hallucination to rattle him. Nothing more, he told himself, but this time he couldn't shake it.  
"Then I will torture the rest. One by one, making the others watch. The slave who led this revolt will die last."  
Enjolras bit his tongue, the sudden pain sharp enough to drive the hallucination from his mind.   
"You will not hurt them!"  
He squeezed the trigger, once, twice. Tholomyés laughed, and like a sudden gust of wind his power tore the blaster out of Enjolras' hands. He scrambled after it, fell to his knees as he reached out, his hands grabbing nothing.


	24. Chapter 24

The way back to the main camp and the lifts was shorter than Bahorel remembered. Thin streaks of light came from the camp, flashlights. He ducked down, but the soldiers didn't come in his direction, they were headed for the ruins. Still, there were bound to be guards at the lifts. One or two he could take on, but a dozen? Not so much. He just had to hope that Tholomyés didn't think anyone would try to break into his fortress while he was busy quelling a slave revolt. 

When Bahorel reached the lifts there were only a handful of guards, likely bored and certainly not expecting any company. Still too many to take on in a straight fight, but Bahorel had faced worse odds before. He scanned his surroundings. The lifts themselves had been locked up at the top of the valley, probably with a keycard one of the guards would have. He had to draw some away, find a way to separate them and take them out one by one.   
Maybe there was something to the force picking sides, because no sooner had he thought that one of the guards broke off from the lifts and made his way to the copse of dead trees where Bahorel was hiding. Bahorel waited, fists itching to make acquaintance with this slaver scum, heart pounding in excitement, that brief rush of power at finally being able to do something and if it was only something as small as this. The guard set up against a tree, loosening the armour plates to take a leak, when Bahorel attacked. He pulled him down, the soldier's scream muffled by murky water closing in over his head, Bahorel's fists hitting his face, bones cracking underneath his knuckles. The soldier drew a combat knife, took a swipe at Bahorel who bore down on his arm, heard bone breaking and the soldier, gurgling as he swallowed water, let go of the knife. Bahorel fished it out of the water and with one last decisive motion drove the knife into the soldier's neck. Blood spread in the water, mixed with the mud and floats of ice, wider and faster than Bahorel would have liked. He left the knife sticking in the soldier's neck but relieved him of his rifle, searching for but not finding a keycard that could belong to the lifts, pulling the body after him further into the mess of dead trees and rubble.  
"Hey!" he called out, loud as he could. "Over here! Quickly!"  
He peeked out from behind the trees, watched the soldiers at the lifts looking at each other in confusion. He hoped dearly the lifts were operated with keycards and not with passwords. He'd be shit out of luck then.  
Two more of the soldiers advanced, leaving only two at the lifts. Equipped with a rifle and the excitement of the fight Bahorel liked those chances. 

Two shots of the rifle shredded the soldiers' protective forcefields, another two killed them. He rifled through their pockets, jubilated softly as one of them produced a keycard. The gunfire was loud enough to alert the remaining two but they didn't as Bahorel had hoped, run after their compatriots. Instead they fell into a defensive stance, their own rifles aimed at roughly were Bahorel was standing. They couldn't see him, but they had time on their side. They'd call for reinforcements soon if they hadn't already. He had to act quickly. He burst out of cover, concentrating his fire on only one of the soldiers. At this distance the forcefields weren't taken down as easily, and he wasn't wearing any. The first shot grazed his head, the second hit his shoulder. He drew back, ducked behind cover again, but he'd seen the soldier's forcefield flicker. He couldn't give it time to recharge and so, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, ran ahead, out of cover and towards the soldiers, weaving in a zigzag motion while firing at the same time. His accuracy was nonexistent but by sheer dumb luck he hit the left soldier enough to down both his forcefield and him, reaching him just in time to grab his body and put it between himself and the other soldier, who shouted something at him that Bahorel elected not to understand.  
Rather than sticking with his human shield strategy he shoved the soldier's body towards the remaining one and made a dash for the lifts, keycard in hand. The soldier fell under the weight of the corpse, struggled to get up again.   
Bahorel felt he could have taken on the entire Imperial army. He slammed the keycard into the reader, and called the lifts down, jumping behind the control panel, giving him precious little cover but enough to take potshots at the soldier and force him to defend himself rather than flush Bahorel out of hiding. The lifts came down, Bahorel took a shot to the hip just to reach them. And found himself face to face with fifteen Imperial soldiers and the ends of their weapons.

"F-"  
The soldier he'd fought brought down the butt of his rifle on his head. Bahorel dropped to his knees, sharp pain making him dizzy. His vision swam. The soldiers grabbed him, hit him when he tried again to fight back. One of them came close enough for Bahorel to all but kiss his armoured knees.   
"Get this scum to the fort," he said. Bahorel forced himself to look up, blinking against the dizziness threatening to make him throw up. His ears rang. This soldier wasn't wearing his helmet either and he bent down towards Bahorel, a malicious grin on his face.  
"You people never learn-"  
Bahorel spat at him, hit him dead center. The Imperial soldier yelped, stumbled backwards, almost tripped on the steps of the lift. He barked an order and the next thing Bahorel felt was pain at the back of his head and then nothing.


	25. Chapter 25

Tholomyés advanced. Enjolras scrambled for his weapon, hands numb from cold as they searched the murky water, tears of desperation making his search more difficult.  
"Why so protective? They are just slaves. And your friends have abandoned you."  
"I'm with them."  
Enjolras, skin burning, muscles screaming, weaponless and helpless thought wildly that being caught in this mess was worth it just to see a Sith utterly gobsmacked. Tholomyés had counted on a Jedi springing to Enjolras' aid, had drawn out the fight to lure out a true enemy. He had succeeded, but it was no Jedi that had jumped the trap.

Grantaire, lightsaber burning green like poison, like spring grass, like the lights in his cantina, threw himself between Tholomyés and Enjolras. Enjolras used the second he'd been given and pushed himself forward, almost landed ontop of his blaster and grabbed it, just in time to hear and see Tholomyés recovering from the surprise.  
"Worthless runt," he snarled. "You would betray us for these creatures?"  
"I betrayed the Sith long ago," Grantaire said. "For far less. Now, why don't you pick on someone your own size?"  
He attacked, forced Tholomyés to bring up his lightsaber, use both hands to defend himself, the same power that had struck down a dozen Imperial soldiers at his cantina. It wasn't enough. Grantaire's attacks swung in a tight arc, precisely aiming for Tholomyés arms, his chest, his neck. He rolled back on his heels to dodge counterattacks, keeping balanced, but still driven on the defenses. His form was flawless, his power negligible. When his lightsaber connected, he sliced Tholomyés' robes but barely managed to burn his skin. When Tholomyés, feinting and coming from the left too fast for Enjolras to call out a warning, grazed Grantaire's side, he cried out and nearly buckled under the pain, a deep wound left behind. Enjolras rolled to his feet, used the opening Grantaire had given him to aim, to focus on the pin of Tholomyés' chest, the smallest point he could find, and pulled the trigger.  
Tholomyés pulled up his lightsaber in an arc of red light, a shimmering of force energy following its motion, blocking in one turn Grantaire's lightsaber and Enjolras' blaster. He pushed against the forcefield, forced it to collapse and burst outward. It threw Grantaire back, he landed heavily on his back, and once again Enjolras didn't think when he ran to his side, leaving himself open. Tholomyés didn't attack and when Enjolras chanced a look, he found him grinning. He was still only playing with them. This time not to lure out another foe, but for sadistic pleasure.  
Grantaire groaned out a Huttese curseword that in other circumstances would have made Enjolras blush, but his eyes when they found Enjolras' betrayed nothing of despair or regret.  
"Hey," he said, hopeful smile contorting into a grimace as he felt for broken ribs and found some.   
"Why are you here?" Enjolras reached out, drew back. Grantaire was a Sith. Grantaire was a friend. They had kissed, he had betrayed them. Had he? He must have, he was a Sith.   
"I don't want to live as a Sith," Grantaire said, voice weak and trembling with fear. "I'd rather die here protecting you. If that's alright with you."  
He was a Sith. He was hurt. Enjolras reached out again, found Grantaire's hand, squeezed it tightly.   
"I don't know what to believe," he said weakly. Grantaire huffed out a pained laugh.  
"Me neither. Help me up?"  
They rose together to face the advancing Sith Lord.


	26. Chapter 26

The wreckage burned. The dark side on this planet fed off Jehan's despair, gleefully rooted itself in the waves of emotion crashing over him. He felt Grantaire's pain, being rejected for he knew not what. Felt the loss of hope of dozens of forceblind slaves, felt Feuilly giving up, bright optimism blinking out and leaving a hole in the living force. Then the triumph of the Dark Lord finding one of their own, Enjolras' fear, the grim determination. Not afraid to die, but Jehan was afraid for him. And before him the wreckage burned, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not sense Éponine's lifeforce anywhere amid the flames.   
"You did this," Montparnasse whispered, the facade cracking. Had Jehan the strength, he could have overwhelmed him now. He didn't. "You killed her. You and your damn plans."  
"I ... "  
Jehan didn't know what he would have said. Apologised, or bargained, or shared his grief, it didn't matter. Montparnasse was blind and deaf to anything but the fire.  
"When we had nothing, we had each other. And now she's dead."  
Between the roaring fire, the metal screeching as it warped and tore from the heat, and Montparnasse's voice, neither of them heard footsteps approaching. Only when heavy boots hit the metal walkways, did Montparnasse turn around, full of rage and grief, weapon drawn more quickly than Jehan could have, pointing it at the intruder.  
Then, his hand trembling and his eyes filling with tears from grief and the black smoke, he let the weapon sink.

"What a light show, huh?"  
Jehan stared, at the apparition in front of him, then at Montparnasse. But he was looking stunned, too, so it couldn't be a hallucination.   
"Éponine?"  
In a flash Montparnasse was at her side, nearly pushing Jehan to the ground in his haste to get to his friend. She laughed when he took her face between his hands, lightly punched his shoulder to get him to lay off.  
"How ... ?"  
"Remote piloting system. Dad was snooping around, so I made it look like I was trying to escape. Look, I didn't crash my ship just for fun. Thenardier knows what's up, Tholomyés is either on his way or already at the ruins, they revoked my IFF, hence the ship being shot down. Thenardier's going to come running any second to salvage the cargo, his ship is going to be unguarded. And he still has his IFF."  
Jehan's mind raced to keep up, but he thought he knew what she had in mind.  
"We use Thenardier's ship to take out the anti aircraft cannons."  
"Yes, and we need to get a move on, we don't have much time. Musichetta's ship is about to enter orbit, if she doesn't land right away, Imperial air control is going to pick her out of the sky. Come on."

"Ponine, are you insane-"  
Montparnasse actually stepped away when her laser sharp gaze hit him. She bridged the distance he just had established, grabbing him by the shoulders.  
"Parnasse, listen." Her voice changed, became sharper, harder, but underneath that tinged with well-worn fondness. "If you've ever had a decent bone in your body, you'll let us go. I don't care what Thenardier told you, I don't give a fuck if you think you're too much of a coward. You'll damn well grow a spine and show some integrity for once. Clear?"  
"... Clear."   
Jehan looked up, hopefully.  
"You'll let us go?"  
Montparnasse offered a half-grin.  
"I can do you one better."

The ship was bigger than Éponine's, and smelled of cheap cologne. Montparnasse raced to the cockpit, Éponine free to take up the weapons controls, barely checking if Jehan was still behind them, but Montparnasse pulled out the copilot's chair for him when he fell into his own, starting the machines, ignoring Éponine telling him to hurry, muttering to himself.  
"I'm so dead, I'm so dead, I'm so dead ... "  
Jehan reached out through the force, sent an impression of the relief he felt to Montparnasse. His muttering died down, his emotions calmed. He brought the ship into the air, cursed out Éponine in something that sounded a lot like routine, as they bickered back and forth.  
"Keep the ship steady, damnit."  
"Learn to aim."  
"Learn to suck my cunt folds."  
"Been there, done that."  
Montparnasse didn't look at Jehan throughout the conversation, did things to the ship controls Jehan didn't even begin to understand, but his avoidance of the eye contact seemed especially pronounced during the last part. Jehan filed the thought away for later, chose to be grateful to Montparnasse right in this moment. 

Without him he'd have been lost. With him, it might still be too late.  
"Hurry," Éponine said. "Musichetta's dropped out of hyperspeed."  
Montparnasse set the ship hovering in mid air, and Éponine fired, once, twice. The explosion rocked the ship, inertial dampeners kicking in too late on such a short distance. Smoke and fire, burning shrapnel hit the front cameras, the impression of bugs on a windshield.  
"One down, one to go." Éponine's satisfied grin was audible in her voice, coaxing something similar out of Montparnasse who brought the ship around to the remaining AA gun.   
"Good luck," Jehan said to Éponine over the internal comms, but it was Montparnasse's shoulder he touched, just a hint of a force impression, offered rather than snuck in. Montparnasse took it, allowed Jehan to calm his nerves and keep the ship steady throughout the hum of enemy AA guns powering up. Éponine fired again, whooped and yelled when the guns went down and Montparnasse slumped back in the pilot's chair, drawing his hands across his face.  
"We're not done, Parnasse. We still need to get to Feuilly's people."  
"Who's Feuilly?" he asked.  
"He's a slave. We want to free him and his people," Jehan said.  
Montparnasse shook his head.  
"Foolish bleeding heart Jedi nonsense," he muttered tiredly, but resigned as if this was something that might as well happen today. Above them Musichetta's ship broke through the thick cloud cover, engines turning snow to steam.  
Montparnasse sighed at the sight of the Republic corvette, and muttered to himself, but he did turn the ship around towards the Imperial soldiers converging on Feuilly and his people.


	27. Chapter 27

Bahorel woke being dragged along an unfamiliar hallway, legs scraping over the floor, the dim light helping a little with his pounding headache. A smarter man would have played dead longer, come up with a plan. Bahorel's last plan hadn't worked out so well, and it had taken up the last of his patience. 

He threw himself backwards, knocked the guards pulling him along off balance and rolled out of the way before they could think twice. He jumped to his feet, swayed under the sudden dizziness and charged with his eyes closed, wrestling one soldier to the ground and coming to his feet again, breaking into a run. He heard blaster rifles being discharged, something breakable crashed, but no shot hit Bahorel until he rounded the corner, finding himself at the end of a long hallway. He ran ahead, skipped the first and second door, but found the third open, dashing inside and slamming the door button closed. The soldiers followed around the corner, shouting coming muffled through the door. He heard doors hissing open, as they searched for him. He didn't have long.  
Bahorel took a look around and realised he was in Tholomyés' torture dungeon. It looked like a hospital, with odd implements on the counters and hanging from the ceiling, the floor and wall tiles grey and clinical, but the groaning slave fixed to a metal slab was a dead giveaway.  
"Please ..." the slave said. It was Bossuet, the slave that had been taken earlier. "I don't know anything, please, don't hurt me-"  
"Fuck," Bahorel muttered, a heartfelt little curse at the Force or whatever had brought him here. He'd planned to evade the soldiers but now he had no choice but to face them. Not if he wanted to get this poor guy out. He went to the console, resisted the urge to push buttons at random – never a good idea in a Sith torture room – but figured out the power supply soon enough. He tore the power wiring out of the wall. With the magnetic locks powerless it was easy to bend them out of shape and allow Bossuet's thin limbs to slip through. He almost fell, caught only by Bahorel who picked two of the instruments with blood on them from the counter and put one in Bossuet's hand.  
"Soldiers coming. Stick 'em with that."  
Bossuet was barely conscious, his eyes were swollen shut all but blinding him. But he waved the thing Bahorel had given him to show he understood.  
"Would love ... nothing more ..."  
Bahorel dragged them to a position against the wall.  
"I need to shut down the slave collars remotely. Do you know where we are in this joint?"  
For a moment Bahorel thought Bossuet had lost consciousness. But then Bossuet gave a jerky nod. Bahorel hoped that meant "I know where we are and I can show you to your destination" rather than "I have brain damage and my head is jerking uncontrollably."

Before he could come up with an idea of how to make sure it was either one, the doors opened. Bossuet, driven by hours of torture and the need to get a little payback was almost faster than Bahorel. Bahorel shoved his torture instrument into the first open spot on the soldiers he could find, this time pressing buttons at random. It resulted in the soldier screaming, dropping to the ground, and an odd sizzling sound Bahorel knew he'd have nightmares about. Bossuet was similarly occupied, although he didn't stop with a single attack. Again and again he drove the thing into the soldier's eye socket, would have laughed if not for the bruises around his neck and the blood spilling from his lips. Bahorel pulled him back, dodged Bossuet's elbow.  
"We don't have time, come on."  
Bossuet appeared to have gotten some of his strength back. He limped ahead almost without help, leading Bossuet down the hallway, around two corners and into another room, empty except for the computers. Bossuet pointed at one of them, then sank down against the wall, labouring for air. The computer was unprotected, it was a matter of executing a few commands to make a red warning pop up that told him that the slave collars had been deactivated. Whatever odds Feuilly's people were facing, they had just gotten better.   
Bad odds, still, Bahorel guessed. They had encountered no further guards, and Bahorel wondered how the fight was going in the valley if all of Tholomyés' henchmen were down there.


	28. Chapter 28

The fight was not going well. It was all Grantaire could do to keep himself between Tholomyés and Enjolras. His blood burned, every motion seemed to pull against some kind of injury, drawing pain from everywhere at once. The dark Force on Ziost tempted him with righteous anger, with justified fury, with love turning to passion turning to strength, but his own doubts kept him from grasping that power. He was forced to rely on technique, fought against his own lightsaber demanding more power than he could give, feeling heavy and clumsy in his hands. 

Tholomyés pushed him back, a wave of his hand crashing force power down on his shoulders. Grantaire buckled, would have fallen if not for Enjolras supporting him, he himself exhausted and wounded and at his wit's end. They didn't have breath to speak, but Grantaire saw that even now Enjolras was full of conviction. Now or later he would die with that conviction, and Grantaire wished desperately that their roles were reversed, that Enjolras was the stalwart force adept defending against a hopeless onslaught and he the wisecracking gunslinger. This fight might have gone differently if they were. 

Overhead, through the cloud cover starships landed and took off, the scream of their engines drowning out his own pained grunts, as two ships, a Republic vessel and transporter Grantaire had seen only once before, came to a halt above the masses of soldiers hovering in mid-air. And opening fire. The slaves cheered, bore down on the soldiers trying to flee the spread of fire from above, watching their opposition fall.   
The soldiers scrambled to end this fight quickly, kill the slaves before they could overwhelm their forces. One of the officers pushed the button to activate the shock collars, the slaves who saw screamed and ducked, an old instinct taking over.   
Nothing happened.   
The soldier cursed, pressed the button again and again, but the collars were deadweight at the people's necks, no more dangerous than the soldiers trying to escape the fire from above and the wrath of the slaves seeking retribution. They threw themselves into the fight without regard for their own lives, years of pent up rage finally finding an outlet. They picked up weapons of fallen soldiers, those who didn't know how to fire them used them to bash their enemies' skulls in, converging on the routing army with the force of melting glaciers.   
Tholomyés saw his army routed by slaves who should have been outgunned and outmatched, stood amid the carnage, his life's work crumbling before him as the ruins groaned and creaked under the weight of the fighting.  
He went into the offensive and bore down on Grantaire, the bones in his arms crunching under the force.  
He was the only thing standing between Enjolras and a Sith lord, and the thought terrified him enough to draw on. He pushed back, tricked Tholomyés into defending his right, then came in on the left, whole body shaking but fast on his feet. Lightsaber met flesh, Tholomyés cried out, obscenities, rage, indignation at being wounded by someone like Grantaire. He drew on his emotions much better than Grantaire, used every drop of rage to turn the tables. He swung his lightsaber, an arc of red light, too fast to block, and Grantaire couldn't dodge, because Enjolras was behind him, because the fool was aiming at Tholomyés hoping to bring him down rather than hiding like a coward like Grantaire would have done. He felt Enjolras at his back, a tangible presence in the force, took one step back hoping to glance off the worst of the damage. And then Enjolras was gone. His presence, physical and metaphysical, gone where he'd stood before and Grantaire stumbled away, missing Tholomyés' lightsaber by centimeters. He fell, rolled out of the way, eyes blurry with sweat, but he could have sworn he'd seen brown cloth coming up.  
He got to his feet, dove behind cover, the force confirming what he thought he'd seen, and then his ears delivering the last proof he needed.  
"Hello Grantaire."

Combeferre. Enjolras beside him, looking starstruck and in love, and Grantaire could not be mad because it meant that Enjolras would listen to him, if not Grantaire.  
"Get out of here. Get him out of here. I'll distract Tholomyés."  
But instead of grabbing Enjolras by the collar and running, Combeferre merely smiled.  
"I'm not running anymore."  
With that he stepped out from behind cover, not bothering to dodge the Sith lord's attacks. It felt like the force converged around him of its own will, so effortlessly did Combeferre call on it as he deflected Tholomyés' lightning attacks.  
"You've chosen poor allies, Jedi," Tholomyés sneered, but he looked worried. Combeferre made no attempt to draw his own lightsaber, as if he couldn't be bothered to take this fight seriously.  
"Against a half-alien mutt? I'm not worried."  
"You dare!"  
Again Combeferre deflected Tholomyés enraged attack, although this time the lightning hit close, singing his robes. Combeferre didn't flinch, Enjolras did. Out of what must have been an old reflex he reached out and found Grantaire's arm, squeezing it nearly to the point of pain.  
"What is he doing?" he whispered, disbelief and fear all mixed up, the sound in his voice mirrored in the expression of Grantaire's face.  
"Your father, Gheraint Tholomyés. Your grandfather, Thelmark Johang." Combeferre said, carelessly destroying the Sith artifacts piled all around them. Tholomyés shouted, wasted energy trying to preserve his heirlooms. He barely noticed when Combeferre threw a holoprojector to the ground between them.   
"Johang had the family tree commissioned, had he not? After the war when so many upstart Sith came into power-"  
"Filth, you will regret opening your mouth-"  
Combeferre continued as if he hadn't heard. The holoprojector sprung to life, revealing a tapestry of names and pictures, interconnected across generations.  
"-they were quick to try and prove how pure they were. And your grandfather's red skin made it easy to forge pureblood relations. But look here, the real pedigree, your esteemed family tree. Your great-grandfather. Qarao, a Zabrak slave."  
"Lies!"  
Grantaire dashed forward, Enjolras behind him, lightsaber at the ready, barely deflecting the wave of force energy Tholomyés threw at Combeferre. Enjolras pulled Combeferre back, laid down a barrage of fire, distracting Tholomyés. Grantaire attacked again, fresh breath in his lungs, his wounds meaningless. He knew what Combeferre was doing. For the first time since landing on Ziost he was almost sure they could win.  
"You are nothing," he said, flanked Tholomyés as Enjolras came in from the other side, forcing the Sith lord to expand valuable energy defending from both sides. He could do it still, but Combeferre wasn't finished.  
"All these trinkets, they're not yours-" A burial urn shattered under Combeferre's clenched fist, ash dissolving in the icy water. "-They're for real Sith, not for half-alien runts, pretending to be something they're not."  
"Jedi lies, none of what you say is true," Tholomyés said but his conviction was faltering. Grantaire knew that feeling all too well. He bore down on Combeferre's behalf.  
"Then take it from someone like me. Real Sith laugh at you, you and your delusions of being pure. You're less than the slaves you keep."  
Grantaire swung around, drove his lightsaber down on Tholomyés. He buckled, knees hitting the rocky watery ground, robe soaked with dirty water, Grantaire and Enjolras above him. He tried to push back with force energy but he had nothing left. His conviction crumbled, he had lost his teeth, even Grantaire more powerful now.  
"Lies. All lies, you have no proof," Tholomyés muttered, but even his lightsaber wouldn't obey him now, growing dim and cold until it turned off for good.  
"Who cares what you think?" Grantaire said then looked up at Enjolras. Their eyes met, as if Enjolras had already been looking at him. "Would you like to do the honours?"  
Enjolras smiled grimly and pulled the trigger.

Tholomyés body slumped to the ground, and Grantaire conferred a last disgrace to him by not pausing. Instead he turned on his heels, elevated by victory, by Enjolras behind him, by Combeferre at his side, towards the soldiers driven back by the slaves fighting for their freedom. Musichetta was in front, white and orange special forces armour all but shining in the sharp light of flashlights and blasterfire. She mowed down whole sections of the enemy, sowed chaos in the ranks to be picked off by Jehan, Éponine, and Montparnasse, working in tandem as if they had done nothing else their entire lives. Grantaire learned why when he stepped in range of Jehan's force bubble. Immediately he felt more alert, more aware of his allies' movements. He turned around to stab an advancing soldier in the neck before he could reach Combeferre, left himself open to attack because he knew Enjolras was covering for him.   
"They're calling reinforcements," Musichetta shouted over the din of the battlefield. "We don't have enough ships to evacuate all the slaves in time."  
"Yes, we do!"  
It was Montparnasse, escorted through a temporary corridor of deflected blaster fire by Jehan.   
"Tholomyés has ships, dozens of them, to keep him supplied out here. We just need his handprint to get into his personal docking bay."  
Behind the helmet it was difficult to see what Musichetta might be thinking. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then relented and called out the order across their small battlefield.  
"Ponine, Jehan, Enjolras, load the sick and injured onto our ships, get them to the top of the valley. Everyone else, defend them!"  
Grantaire took up a defensive position, slaves moving past him, shielded by his desperate attempts to deflect the incoming blasterfire. When his lightsaber wouldn't do he used his body, gritted his teeth at the pain and kept going. Feuilly ran past him, a shade of red and brown, ushering hobbling and limping slaves past them, and then another shade of gold and red as Enjolras closed the ranks, carrying a body over his shoulders, struggling to keep up.   
Grantaire defended him until he boarded one of the ships, then moved to the front of the retreating front line that had formed. Combeferre led the way to the lifts, the able slaves running to keep up, Montparnasse, Musichetta, and Grantaire bringing up the rear, the only ones with weapons worth a damn. One of the enemy soldiers got in a lucky shot, hit Montparnasse in the leg. Grantaire hooked his arm under Montparnasse's shoulder and dragged him to his feet, didn't stop to assuage the incredulous look on the man's face, simply pushed onward, soldiers closing in.

They retreated, slow at first until Musichetta and Éponine took off with those unable to walk, then running as fast as they dared. Combeferre, guiding dozens of people along the paths to the lifts, going through difficult terrain, dead trees and ruins, to shield themselves from the blaster fire of the remaining soldiers. Even going as fast as they could the way forward was slow. But Grantaire no longer fought against the darkness from within. He had picked a new target for his wrath, saw in every Imperial soldier the wretched creature he had been and although the power he once held was nowhere near restored, he could do enough to keep the soldiers at a distance, allowing Montparnasse and Musichetta to disperse their ranks. Éponine's and Musichetta's ship, piloted off the cuff by Joly, had flown overhead just minutes ago. They had certainly landed by now and Grantaire held onto the hope that nothing that awaited them at the stronghold could hold a candle against Enjolras' righteous crusade.


	29. Chapter 29

Enjolras helped Feuilly drag Tholomyés dead body into the docking bay anteroom, and upright, steadying him so Feuilly could use his hand to get them access. The door opened with a hiss, the only sound in an otherwise silent fortress. The sounds of fighting from the valley had disappeared, the idling engines of Musichetta's and Thenardier's ship muted through the several layers of steel doors. It was only because of this quiet that they heard rapid footsteps coming down the hall. Enjolras dragged Tholomyés' corpse into the docking bay and behind the wall, hiding evidence and looking for a spot from which to ambush whoever was coming at them. Feuilly had other plans. He marched ahead to the corner, rickety blaster about as likely to misfire and blow his own hand of as to do any damage, but the fury in his eyes told Enjolras it didn't matter. He followed, chose to support Feuilly even if they were about to be confronted with an entire army.

They were confronted with Bahorel.  
"What the- Bossuet!"  
Bossuet, hanging off of Bahorel's shoulder barely on his own feet, grinned and waved. One of his legs pointing entirely in the wrong direction, but when Enjolras reached out to support him and get him back to the ship, and Joly who could hopefully do something about any of this, his grin grew wider.   
"Knew you'd come for me," he said and lost consciousness. Feuilly reached out, momentary panic replaced with relief when he felt for a pulse and found it. He nodded to Enjolras who began the arduous process of delivering Bossuet to Joly, and turned his attention to Bahorel. But before he could say anything, Bahorel raised his hands in an appeasing gesture.  
"You can heap praises on me when we're out of here. I'll also take credit chips and erotic foot massages- hey, where're you going?"  
"You're a shithead," Feuilly called over his shoulder. "And I've got something I need to do."  
Bahorel sealed the doors to the interior of the fort - based on the sounds of battle coming from outside they'd be in a rush again soon and didn't need the handful of guards still inside - and followed Feuilly to the docking bay entrance where Tholomyés' dead body lay sprawled on the ground. 

He arrived just in time to watch Feuilly do up the fly of his trousers. They both looked down at Tholomyés, only slightly wetter than before, but probably a little bit warmer.  
"Nice," Bahorel said. "But you didn't have to stand that close."  
Another pause, this one putting the onus of contemplation on Feuilly. Finally he said, slowly as if he was testing out the concept on the tip of his tongue: "Was that a joke about the size of my dick?"  
"That was a compliment about the size of your dick," Bahorel corrected. "And I'll add by saying- oh shit."  
"Oh shit?" Feuilly echoed, then he saw the group of slaves rushing towards them, heavy gun fire and the singing of lightsabers in the air finally catching up to them. "Oh shit."  
"Let's go!"  
Musichetta pushed Feuilly and Bahorel forwards, took up position behind the blast doors, Combeferre at the other side, holding his lightsaber in shaking hands.   
"You know what these people can do, right?" Bahorel said to Feuilly, shouting to be heard over the sudden fighting.  
"We endured torture and backbreaking labour together for years."  
"Great. One pilot per ship, get to organising."  
Feuilly turned, directing his people to spread out across Tholomyés' small fleet of shuttles and cargo transports. Bahorel threw himself into the fray, pulling people out of the hands of Imperial soldiers, fighting with hands and feet when one of them took his blaster. He made his way halfway through the crowd rushing past him, breaking like waves on the shore, when he came face to face with Grantaire.

"Fancy seeing you here," he said. Grantaire grinned uncertainly and shrugged. Bahorel knew that one, had seen his quasi-boss use the gesture often enough when he wasn't sure if someone was angry with him and didn't want to appear sensitive in case he misinterpreted the situation.  
"Always knew you were a weirdo, nothing's changed. Good to have you," Bahorel added, clapped Grantaire on the shoulder and let himself be swallowed up by the fighting. Enjolras, Jehan, Montparnasse swept past him, shooting and performing force tricks that made a handful of soldiers stop abruptly only to be trampled by the ranks coming in from behind. Bahorel counted two dozen through the door already, all in heavy armour and heavier weapons. Behind him ships took off, one by one, as the former slaves flew themselves to freedom. He didn't know how many had taken off when he heard Musichetta call out.  
"We're ready, get your asses onboard!"  
Only hers and Éponine's ship remained. He sprinted toward's Chetta's ship with Enjolras, Jehan and Montparnasse toward's Èponine's. He jumped on the landing ramp just as it began to tilt upwards, blaster fire hitting the metal doors, him skidding down the ramp into the ship proper, as engines roared and metal screeched as the ship broke into the airspace. Air resistance rushed deafening around the ship's hull until it broke through the atmosphere. 

And then they flew, out of the planet's orbit, but no alarms blared that they were followed, no cannon fire or laser turrets shot them out of the sky and before Bahorel had reached the med bay he felt the lurch of the ship entering hyperspace.  
The med bay was crowded. Bossuet lay on one of the beds, conscious again, surrounded by Joly, Feuilly, Enjolras, Grantaire, and Combeferre, and regaling the party with the story of how Bahorel had broken him out, hands flailing widely  
"He bent the shackles like a madman, just like that, like they're nothing. It was so cool."  
"I'm sure it was," Joly said gently as he pushed Bossuet onto his back and folded his arms at his side. "But you shouldn't move that much."  
"Listen to the good doctor," Musichetta said as she came in, armour halfway off, the other half covered in still sweaty and dirty fatigues. Joly actually blushed, and Bossuet rubbed his bald head, grinning awkwardly and giving Musichetta a thumbs up before lying back down.  
"It was so cool, though," he said to the ceiling. "Like bam-bam-bam, just punched out that guard and then motherfrickin' bent the metal shackles."  
"They're basically rubber once you turn off the magnets. You could have done it." Bahorel said magnanimously. Bossuet laughed, then winced as the laughter caused him pain, then awwed when Joly began fussing over him. But it was Feuilly's reaction Bahorel wanted to see, and it didn't disappoint.  
"Thank you," Feuilly said. "For saving my friend."  
"I only did it for the sexual favours."  
Feuilly laughed, eyes crinkling at the edges, and Bahorel realised for the first time that under the dirt and grime Feuilly had pale freckles, dusting his whole face.   
Enjolras, feeling that that comment had been a little insensitive, considering Feuilly's long years of slave labour which might have very well included forced sexual favours, didn't get to voice his concerns, because someone touched his wrist, featherlight, to get his attention. Turning slightly he saw Grantaire, looking more miserable than he had when it looked like they would die at a Sith lord's hand.  
"Can I talk to you? And Combeferre?"

Enjolras struck up eye contact with Combeferre who stood behind Grantaire like a pacifist bodyguard. He nodded. Enjolras excused himself and followed Grantaire and Combeferre out of the infirmary and into a deserted section of the ship. Grantaire wasn't that much shorter than Combeferre but now, shoulders hunched and head low, he was dwarved even by Enjolras.  
"Look," he began, twisting his hands. "Thanks for letting me catch a ride back to civilisation. I appreciate it, really. And, I … I'm going to get out of your hair, and I don't expect us to be, I don't know, friends or something. That's not why I came back, I just-"  
Oh no. Enjolras realised where this was going. Grantaire was about to apologise for a mistake Enjolras had made, and he couldn't let that happen.  
"Don't." he said fast, but his tone was all wrong because even Combeferre was taken aback. Grantaire flinched, flinched again when Combeferre reached out and rubbed his arms in soothing motions.  
"It's okay," Combeferre said while Enjolras gathered his thoughts into something that would accurately get across what he was feeling when he looked at Grantaire. "We don't want you to get out of our hair."  
"Right," Enjolras said, picking up where Combeferre left off. "I made a mistake at the ruins. I should have let you speak. This whole time you were the best friend I could have asked for, you came to Ziost with me even though it scared you, and I repaid that favour poorly. I wish you'd told me the truth, about who you used to be, but based on my reaction I don't blame you for not saying anything."  
"Does that mean …," Grantaire hesitated. "Are we good?"  
"We're good," Combeferre confirmed, and in that moment Enjolras realised that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't give his thoughts right now a voice.  
"I love you," he blurted out, looking first at Combeferre, then at Grantaire, both looking confused.  
"Who-"  
"You. Both of you."   
Grantaire stared incredulously, Combeferre had actually pulled him tighter against his chest, like a peculiar safety blanket. Enjolras kept going regardless, certain that either or both would reject him and not caring either way. They had fought his battles without question, stayed by his side even when he had wronged them. The least he owed them was his honesty.  
"I tried to decide which one of you I loved more, but the more I see you, the more I realise that I love you both, together. I know Combeferre loves you, too, Grantaire, and I think the feeling is mutual. I don't expect either of you to return my feelings, but-"  
He didn't get to finish that sentence. Combeferre had surged forward, pulled Enjolras in and kissed him, Grantaire between them, looking up, awestruck and on the verge of either total happiness or a complete nervous breakdown. Combeferre pulled away and Grantaire into a similarly heated kiss and if Enjolras had had any doubts about possibly becoming jealous, they were laid to rest. This, Combeferre kissing Grantaire and Grantaire all but melting into the kiss, was the most scorching hot think he had ever seen. The only thing that could make this better would have been a private bedroom and several hours alone, but they were still on a Republic special forces' officer's ship and so Enjolras settled on stealing kisses from both of them whenever they had to part for air.


	30. Chapter 30

Musichetta knew that telling the brass of her decision to use her shoreleave to infiltrate an Imperial homeworld and free hundreds of slaves, kill a Sith lord and steal his ships, would not go over well.   
Thus she was currently engaged in making up a suitable lie over how she'd come about three hundred people still wearing the scars from the shock collars in twelve Imperial transporters, that would ring every alarm bell the Republic had once she entered their space.  
"You should say you just found us," Bossuet said, still a little loopy but at least recovered enough to sit in the copilot's seat, doted on by Joly half sitting in his lap. To better treat his injuries her ass, but she did have to admit it was kind of sweet how earnest and awkward they were around each other. Even if their lying skills could do with some work.  
"What, just by the roadside? That would raise more questions than it answers."  
"Yeah, Bossuet, people would wonder how you got into the ships."  
Bossuet nodded thoughtfully.  
"Bahorel carried me," he said.  
Joly grinned and wiped away some disinfectant from Bossuet's brow.  
"He did," he said then turned to Musichetta. "If I were you I'd just pretend I'd have no idea what everyone is talking about. I did that with my professors at uni and eventually they got so frustrated, they just wrote me up for a few days missing and let the whole thing go."  
Musichetta stared, wondered vaguely how these two had made it through life so far. In any case, she doubted her superiors would buy the amnesiac option. It did give her an idea, though.  
"I'll say I got a distress call from a Jedi, arrived to find a bunch of ships, agreed to escort them to Republic space. The galactic wartime and peace agreements allow Republic soldiers to escort refugees out of contested space."  
"Ooh," Joly said, copied by Bossuet who was just happy to be included. "That sounds smarter than my idea."  
He petted Bossuet's bald head when he leaned against Joly, looking up at Musichetta through big soulful eyes.  
"Will they take us in?" he asked, in the voice of someone prepared to be disappointed.  
Musichetta squared her jaw, putting a determined jut to her lip she hoped would reassure Bossuet.  
"I'll light a fire under their asses if they don't. Besides, the Republic has nothing to lose if they take you in, we have more than enough resources to feed a few additional mouths, but if they don't they'll have a galactic scandal on their hands. I'll start making calls as soon as we lift off and you'll have official refugee status before we land on Coruscant."  
Bossuet looked pacified, nodding happily. Although that might still have been the drugs. She told him to get some rest, threw a blanket over his and Joly's shoulders, who despite assurances to the contrary was just as exhausted as Bossuet. By the time Musichetta had made a few calls, one to Grantaire to check in with him, and arranged for refueling of the other ships, they had fallen asleep leaning against each other.


	31. Chapter 31

Feuilly's blissful sighs coming from the sonic shower didn't do a lot to dissuade Bahorel's latent horniness poking its head out of the crevisses of his mind. Having to hastily stash away his holoporn and more physical expressions of his unsavoury lifestyle hadn't helped either. To distract himself he half-heartedly picked up small piles of dirty laundry and put them in a bigger pile, making vague plans to take them to Grantaire's for washing. His own sonic washer had broken years ago and gathered dust along with all the other mess in his flat. He'd never spent a lot of time here. Came only to sleep and change clothes, if that, and spent the rest of his life at various jobs and cantinas, both since he'd started working for Grantaire. He wondered if now with a Jedi and a Republic noble in tow his boss would move on to greener pastures and what would happen to the cantina. 

He just started entertaining himself with the idea of the kind of redecoration he'd apply to the place if Grantaire ever decided to hand over the reins when Feuilly emerged from his bathroom.  
He did have freckles, even more than Bahorel had guessed. They dusted his arms, his neck, every little part of skin Bahorel could see, right to the tips of his red hair, red like sunsets rather than the muddy red it used to be.   
"I haven't been this dry in seven years," Feuilly said, blissfully unaware of Bahorel ogling him. "I'd forgotten what it feels like to be warm. You have carpeting in your living room, I like that."  
Bahorel made idle plans to carpet his entire flat. He watched Feuilly dig his toes into the soft carpeting, barely visible under the trousers bunched up at his ankles.  
"You need new clothes, if you want to visit Gavroche at the clinic," Bahorel said. Back on Ziost Feuilly had looked taller somehow, more regal even in the slave rags he'd worn. Now he looked more like a slave than he ever had, small and thin, all but disappearing in Bahorel's too big clothes. Pissing on that old Sith lord's corpse hadn't been enough.   
"What I need is a drink," Feuilly said, then his eyes lit up. "I can get a drink. I'm going to get some street food. Real authentic Nar Shaddaa kebab-"  
"-That might kill you, shortstack."  
Feuilly ignored him. He'd started looking for his shoes, not knowing yet Bahorel had thrown them in the trash compactor along with the rest of his old clothes the moment they'd come in. He took mercy on Feuilly and started digging through his closet for shoes and several pairs of socks that would be needed to make the shoes fit Feuilly.  
"I can get my own place, with a kitchen and a bedroom that are two separate rooms. I can get a speeder, a blue one. I can get a speeder license. I want to have sex."  
Bahorel's internal tallying of Feuilly's wishes against his own savings came to an abrupt halt.  
He prided himself on not being as obtuse as some other people in his friendship circle. When he caught Feuilly looking him up and down he knew exactly what it meant and it made him grin.  
"I can arrange that," he said and caught Feuilly throwing himself at him mid-air, laughing and falling back onto his sofa. He played with the thought of getting Feuilly to a proper bed, but discarded the thought as, evidenced by Feuilly's hands already on his dick, neither of them had the patience. There'd be time enough for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meant to write a whole thing about Feuilly reuniting with Gavroche and then some fluffy family stuff. Maybe there'll be a oneshot someday.


	32. Chapter 32

Éponine leaned back in the pilot seat, this one too big and unwieldy for her tastes, the dashboard too empty, the smells all wrong. But still, a ship was a ship.   
Lift off was an almost automatic process, during which she could take her eyes off the consoles and look at the stars breaking through the perpetual orange cloud cover of Nar Shaddaa. The ever pulsing lights of the Smuggler's Moon were replaced by starlight on a pitch black backdrop, a window into eternity, and a whole lifetime of opportunity. No matter how often she pierced the emptiness in her ship or how often she felt the lurch of artificial gravity kicking in, it never got old. She had done this hundreds of times, but the times she'd had company she could count on one hand.  
"Where to, captain?"  
She grinned, then laughed when she heard Montparnasse desperately trying to stifle his giggles.  
"Dumbass," she said fondly, but she doubted he missed how being called captain made her feel.  
"That's not a very nice way to refer to a friend." Jehan stepped up, holding a flower pot. "And Coruscant, please. I must deliver this to the Botanical Preservation Society."  
Éponine thought she'd seen the plant before, on a windowsill in Joly's dorm room, but it was Montparnasse who asked, curious about everything pertaining to Jehan. Éponine was glad. She'd like being friends with Montparnasse again without his crush hanging over them.  
"A Balmorra Blue," Jehan explained, who seemed just as happy to have Montparnasse's attention. "It grows in adversity and dark places, which is why few people ever get to see its beauty. I am quite fond of it."  
Éponine chortled, Montparnasse and Jehan looked up, but she waved them off. They didn't appear to get the joke and she'd rather not explain it. She set a course to Coruscant, calculating the next hyperspace jump window, and letting the countdown run down. 

Then she gasped and smashed the abort button, pushing away from the console in the same motion. Jehan and Montparnasse, engaged in some deep longing eyecontact, were startled out of their reverie.  
"We can't go to Coruscant yet," Éponine said. "There a thirty thousand credits worth of fake Sith artifacts on this ship!"  
A beat. Montparnasse looked outside as if the artifacts might magically appear out of nowhere. Éponine laughed helplessly, recovering from the shock of almost accidentally smuggling darkside artifacts into the Republic capital, a place notorious for how unkindly it took to that sort of thing.  
"We can use some of Thenardier's contacts."  
"Maybe even make a profit after we've paid back Grantaire's friend for the spice that burned up in the wreck of your ship," Montparnasse agreed, with a boyish smile she'd never seen him wear before. Jehan's hand rested on his back. He stopped, a contemplative look crossing his face.  
"Say, we didn't ..."  
"What?"  
Montparnasse shook his head, but whatever question had presented itself to him in his head remained unanswered. Carefully, weighing every word he said: "We're in Thenardier's ship right now."  
"Yes?" Éponine wondered if Montparnasse had hit his head.  
"We also stole all of Tholomyés' ships. Your ship is a wreck."  
The credit chip dropped.  
"Oh no," she said, trying hard to keep a neutral face, biting down on her lip to keep from laughing. Looking at Montparnasse didn't help. Jehan looked confused and Éponine explained.  
"We left my father stranded on Ziost."  
Jehan's mouth formed the o of understanding.  
"That's terrible," he said. Éponine broke into laughter. She howled with it, helplessly shaken by the mental image of her father sitting on that icy rock, answering some very difficult questions about dead Sith lords and runaway slaves. Montparnasse followed suit and then even Jehan couldn't suppress a muffled giggle. Soon all three of them were laughing, leaning over and into each other between snorts and giggles. Éponine, tears of joy in her tears, barely managed to input new coordinates. They jumped into hyperspace still laughing.


	33. Chapter 33

The Side Deck cantina was a mess. Bahorel had done some work cleaning up the worst - they could enter now without tripping over two separate piles of rubble and the Imperial bodies had been removed as well. From the faint stains on the walls and floors Bahorel had spent most of his time cleaning up the blood. Enjolras appreciated it. Grantaire looked apprehensive being back here, none of them needed being overwhelmed by the smell and sight of blood he'd spilled. He led the way through the mess in the cantina and towards the back, looking back a couple of times as if to make sure Enjolras and Combeferre were still following. Everytime he smiled uncertainly and kept going, only to look again a couple of steps in. Eventually Enjolras had enough and reached for Grantaire's hand, linking their fingers with assured finality. Combeferre, seeing what Enjolras was doing, followed suit. Going up the stairs and through the door to Grantaire's flat holding hands wasn't an easy feat.  
"You have to-" Grantaire started. "I have to get my keys."  
"Allow me," Combeferre said and smoothly stepped in front of Grantaire, using his free hand to reach into Grantaire's pocket, never once breaking eye contact. Enjolras watched Grantaire's adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard, felt his hand clench around his own. Enjolras squeezed back, took the keycard Combeferre offered and opened the door while Combeferre, taking Grantaire's chin between his fingers lifted his head up to kiss him.   
Under any other circumstances Enjolras would have done his best to get these two naked in bed with him right now. But as they stumbled into the flat, laughing as they still hadn't stopped holding onto each other, but tired and the frost of Ziost only beginning to thaw, rest sounded more appealing than sex, even involving these two. They let go of each other, drifting through the flat, to make tea, to look for extra blankets and pillows and, in Enjolras' case, taking a much needed shower. He shucked his clothes on the way there, leaving a trail of clothes he hoped Grantaire wouldn't fault him for, longing for Grantaire's genuine hot water shower. He stepped in, all but moaned at the first torrent of water coming down on him. 

But despite the comfort or the fact that with the water all tension swept away and made his knees go weak, Enjolras didn't select the shower as his permanent home. He wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week, but he wanted to do so next to Grantaire and Combeferre, as a constant reminder that this was real, that he got to have both of them after everything that happened, after every cruel and careless thing he did. He washed up and rinsed off, stepped out of the shower and reached for Grantaire's dark bathrobe he let him have once before, padding out into the hall and towards where he assumed Grantaire's bedroom was.   
He found the bedroom, and Grantaire and Combeferre in the bed, the latter with a cup of tea, both drawing Enjolras in with their eyes alone. Enjolras crawled into the bed and almost fell out when Combeferre exclaimed: "It is a Sith robe! I thought I was being silly the first time I saw it, but it is."  
Enjolras looked reflexively over his shoulder, then realised what Combeferre must be referring to. He looked down at himself, at the black cozy robe, then up at Grantaire who made a concerted effort to hide behind his own wild curls.  
"You're ...," Enjolras took a deep breath. "You're using a symbol of darkside power as a dressing gown?"  
Grantaire shrunk into himself.  
"It was that or throw it out," he mumbled, frowning in confusion when it drew laughter out of Enjolras. His frown smoothed out when Enjolras laid down at his side, reaching over to curl his arm around Grantaire's waist. All at once the exhaustion of the last days caught up with Enjolras, the pressure lifting of his shoulders, and the adrenaline finally subsiding to make space for deep absolute tiredness. He heard Grantaire's breath hitch but the only concession he made to that was to pull Grantaire's hand up against his heart and lean down to kiss his knuckles, before closing his eyes and settling in for the first good sleep he'd had in a while. Over the cotton in his brain he heard a holocom going off, and then, just as tired as he was, Combeferre and Grantaire answering the call.  
They spoke in low voices, obviously trying not to wake Enjolras up, and Enjolras didn't find a reason to dissuade them from that notion. Grantaire's deep voice rumbled in his chest, a calming susurrus of noise, harmonising with the smoothness of Combeferre's. He barely understood what was going on, thought he heard Musichetta, but couldn't be sure.  
Grantaire's laughter shook Enjolras, interrupting his peaceful drifting into sleep. He yawned, stretched and buried his head against Grantaire's shoulder, who stilled. Enjolras imagined him looking helplessly at Combeferre, who'd nod and encourage him. Maybe he had because Grantaire's free hand found its way carding through Enjolras' hair.  
"Have you heard of Éponine?" he asked Musichetta trying and failing to sound aloof.  
"They took off shortly after we landed. Nothing since. That dandy friend of hers and Jehan were with her. No idea where they're headed but they looked happy."  
"If I know her, she's going to stroll into my cantina in six months a few thousand credits richer. Her father's still on Ziost last I heard, Imperials won't be happy when they find him. I bet she's going to get good use out of his criminal empire."  
"She looked the type, yes. Anyway, I have to head out, wring some Hutt necks about getting refueled. Talk to you soon."  
Grantaire and Combeferre must have spoken their goodbyes, but Enjolras didn't remember hearing them before he fell asleep.


	34. Chapter 34

Grantaire had forgotten to darken the windows. Nar Shaddaa was never dark even during its nightcycle, it operated in waves of high and less high activity at all times, so it helped to at least pretend there was a nighttime to enjoy by darkening windows and locking out the sounds of the traffic, the nearby casinos and the ever-present advertisements.   
When he woke he thought it was that light and noise that had done it, but the cold of his back alerted him to Combeferre missing. Blinking the sleep away he extricated himself as gently as he could from Enjolras' death grip around his arm. After being surrounded by two warm bodies underneath thick blankets for hours the air felt cold and uninviting. Grantaire reached for the first warm-ish thing he saw, Combeferre's brown robe, and wrapped himself in it, making his way to the kitchen and the source of the noise he hoped was Combeferre and not a burglar.

It was Combeferre, and he was in the process of making breakfast. Grantaire thought that after coming to save their lives and kissing him silly several times between Ziost and Nar Shaddaa, this was still the best thing Combeferre had ever done for him.   
He didn't appear to have noticed him yet and so Grantaire continued on light feet, eyes fixed on a glass of Alderaanian garden fruit. He reached out, just for one bite, maybe two, when Combeferre's hand came down on his.  
"You're going to ruin your appetite," he said, finally looking at Grantaire. His smile froze but Grantaire didn't have time to build up apprehension before it thawed and grew wider. Combeferre looked away, holding his hand before his mouth to hide the embarrassed smile.  
"You look nice," he said. "In that. My clothes. You look ... nice."  
Grantaire hadn't intended to get Combeferre all hot and bothered through the choice of his clothes, but he wasn't about to look a gift tauntaun in the mouth. He sprawled against the counter, hands gliding down the robe, looking hopefully lascivious and not silly.  
"Do I? Bet you're thinking of getting me out of them. Or maybe I could keep them on and you could take me right here on the counter, while I'm wearing your-"  
Combeferre's tactic of interruption, Grantaire decided, was fantastic. His lips were hot, his tongue demanding, as he licked and bit at Grantaire's lips, pressing their bodies close together. The cold of the flat dissipated like steam, Grantaire didn't even bother suppressing the sounds he made as he drew in closer, hands roaming across Combeferre's body, sneaking under his robes, hearing Combeferre moan softly. Grantaire was certain Combeferre would have fucked him right here in his own kitchen if the caf brewer didn't chime and reminded them there were, at least for now, more important matters, like food. Combeferre pulled back reluctantly, but stole a quick kiss before turning back to his work. Grantaire was left holding himself up on the counter, a little dazed. He'd never expected he'd end up in his own kitchen, over a cantina on Nar Shaddaa, being kissed silly by a Jedi.   
He swallowed, pulled himself together into a semblance of a functioning human being.  
"What are you going to do after this?"  
"Set the table, if I can find your cutlery," Combeferre said.  
"Second cabinet from the right. But I mean, after this, whatever this is. Are you going to go back to Tython?"  
Combeferre looked up, smile turning into something more quiet, almost somber.  
"I defied the Jedi Council twice now. They think I've fallen to the dark side."  
Grantaire refused to let the hope in his chest grow.  
Instead he said: "But they're big on second chances. They'd let you back in."  
"Oh yes, they would," Combeferre said. "After a lot of lecturing and preaching and meditation. And perhaps I would even believe them in time, that what I did was wrong."  
It was too late, Grantaire was hoping.  
"But … you don't want to go back?"  
"Over three hundred people are free who would have died as slaves yesterday," Combeferre said. "The Council would have let them die. Any philosophy that calls that a dark side act must be flawed."  
"So," Grantaire pressed. "Just to make this absolutely clear ... "  
Combeferre turned around, pained expression turning back into what he'd worn just after he'd kissed him.   
"I want to stay," he said. "With you, if you'll have me, and Enjolras, if possible."  
"If I'll … of course I'll have you, what kind of question is that," Grantaire said.   
He imagined he looked like an idiot, smiling at Combeferre and him smiling back, the two of them standing in the middle of his kitchen, grinning at each other. They had their backs turned but as one they reached out, hands coming down on Enjolras' who had reached for the Alderaanian garden fruit.  
"You're going to ruin your appetite," Grantaire said.   
"Force users," Enjolras grumbled but he let himself be pulled into a hug between them.   
They stood like that for a while, only enjoying each other's presence when Combeferre's holocom rang.  
There was only one possible caller. Éponine and Musichetta would have called Grantaire, any of Combeferre's old friends would have called Enjolras. Trepidation built inside him, tempting him to just ignore the call, put off the inevitable for a while. Grantaire's hand found his, squeezed it.  
"The Jedi Council?" he asked, but it wasn't a question, not really. Combeferre nodded. Then emboldened by Enjolras and Grantaire staying close by his side, making no attempt to distance themselves from him, he picked up.  
"Combeferre. I believe we told you to return to Tython," Master Satele said without preamble. "And yet we find the shuttle you were supposed to be on empty. Do we need to send someone to pick you up?"  
Master Satele's disapproving frown almost made Combeferre give in. Enjolras's equally disapproving frown gave him resolve.  
"Don't talk like that to Combeferre," Enjolras said. Grantaire shook his head, but Enjolras wouldn't be budged. "He's braver than the rest of you combined, you should be thanking him for doing what you couldn't."  
Grantaire huffed, dropping his head against Combeferre's shoulder in quiet disbelief.  
"Excuse me, who are you?"  
"He's one of the men I love," Combeferre said. His voice grew steadier, the trepidation made way for indignation. "More importantly, he was my childhood friend. You let me believe he'd forgotten about me. I'm not returning to the order, Master Satele, I'm sorry. And I'd very much appreciate if you let me have all the letters he wrote that you kept from me, thank you very much."  
And with that he hung up, breathing heavily, feeling a little weak and a lot elated, finding the other two staring at him with elation, on Enjolras' part, and shocked admiration, on Grantaire's.   
"That was the most polite telling-off I've ever heard," Grantaire said. Then he grinned. "Now you really are like Revan, telling the Council to fuck off and all."  
Combeferre laughed softly, pulling first Enjolras and then Grantaire into a kiss.  
"Who's Revan?" Enjolras asked, eyes glazed over just a little as he watched Grantaire pull Combeferre into a deeper kiss, using just a hint of tongue and a wicked grin. At Enjolras' question he pulled back.  
"You ...", he said flabbergasted, pointed at Enjolras, looked at Combeferre. "You don't know who Revan is?"  
Enjolras shrugged.  
"Some Jedi?" he guessed, laughing when Grantaire dramatically clutched imaginary pearls, all but swooning into Combeferre's arms.   
"Some Jedi, he says," he said to Combeferre, who shook his head, half in amusement at Grantaire's antics, half reproaching him for making fun of Enjolras.   
"She-"  
"Or he, depending on the translations." Grantaire interjected, purely Combeferre suspected, to confuse Enjolras further.  
"Was one of the greatest force users in our history. I'll tell you about it over breakfast?"  
The second he said that all three realised what they had forgotten. Grantaire yelped, extricating himself from Combeferre and jumping over the counter where their breakfast had gone through several more chemical processes than they had intended.  
"Uh," Grantaire said, picking up a sizzling lump of coal with his fork. Combeferre couldn't even tell what it used to be.

They went out to get breakfast at a foodstall run by a Twi'lek, who of course, knew Grantaire by name. She served them delicacies of Ryloth and made comments in Huttese that had Grantaire blush.  
"I've been thinking," Enjolras said, after they ordered. "The Imperials know about the Side Deck Cantina now. I'm not saying they'll necessarily return, but it's probably not a bad idea to plan a contingency. My family still has money, and I think they were relieved that I left, and wouldn't be averse to paying for a starship. We've done a lot by ourselves, and I think we can continue doing so. We'll continue building up a net of contacts, we'll keep an ear out for people who need help, we could find a way to finance these operations somehow, I'm sure."  
Enjolras kept talking about his plans, started drafting budgets and ideas for future endeavours on Grantaire's holopad as they ate, barely pausing long enough to get some food in him, eyes shining with endless opportunities.  
Halfway through breakfast Combeferre leaned over to Grantaire.  
"That means he wants to stay here with us," he said conspiratorally. Enjolras looked up, caught and blushing.  
"I mean, if you want … I wouldn't mind-"  
"You'll stay," Grantaire said, not hiding his relief, and indulging the impulse to lean over the table and capture Enjolras' lips in a kiss.   
Enjolras broke it first, opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again as he indulged in the urge to kiss Grantaire again, and again, until he pulled away for good, leaving Grantaire breathing hard and with swollen lips, and Combeferre feeling glad that he was still wearing his loose Jedi robes.  
"Are you sure you won't regret this?" Enjolras asked after he composed himself, looking at Combeferre.  
"The Napean yam hummus?"   
Combeferre looked down at his dish, which didn't look any more suspicious than it had just a minute ago.  
"Leaving the Jedi," Grantaire translated, mouth full.   
Enjolras nodded, earnest and just a little concerned.  
Combeferre realised that he meant the question and that he would deal with the consequences. If Combeferre decided he wanted to return to the Jedi after all, Enjolras would pretend to be fine and help him pack his bags. He wanted to tell him that that was never going to happen, that even though a hundred million little reasons would not have been enough to assuage his guilt over turning his back on the light, the thing he was taught to believe for eighteen years was the only thing keeping a force user from committing unimaginable horrors. But that being with Enjolras and Grantaire erased all doubt and regret. He didn't have the words to express how little he ever wanted to leave their sides or how much he was looking forward to each new day they would spend together. No matter where they would go next, if they stayed here or went to Alderaan or Coruscant or any world in the galaxy at all, he wanted it to be at their side.  
"I'm sure," was what he settled on saying.


End file.
